Shadow and Steel: The Chicago Way
by Kirayoshi
Summary: Six months after Schism. Team Cyclops? Team Wolverine? Try Team "Screw this, we're outta here!" Look out, Chicago, you're about to get your own superheroes! Major Spoilers for FEAR ITSELF and SCHISM. Kiotr. Final Chapter up.
1. I've Got Soul But I'm Not a Soldier

Disclaimers: Marvel owns all. I'm just borrowing them for a bit of sport.

AN: This takes place after the current Schism arc, which is separating the X-Men into two teams with different agendas, led by Cyclops and Wolverine respectively. From the looks of it Colossus and Kitty end up on opposite teams, which bugs the hell out of me for obvious reasons. Not to mention the whole Juggernaut/Colossus hybrid thing. I thought Kitty's fishbowl helmet thing looked bad until I saw Colossus in Jug's metal dome! How lame can you get? So naturally, I had to write this little AU storyline, which takes place a few months after Schism. All spoilers for Schism and Fear Itself apply, natch.

Rating: PG for now, but you know how it is when two crazy kids like Peter and Kitty are in love. May change at a later time, who knows?

Synopsis: Team Cyclops? Team Wolverine? Try Team "Screw this, we're outta here!" Look out, Chicago, you're about to get your own superheroes!

MEKANIX:

Shadow and Steel

By Kirayoshi

Prologue:

I've Got Soul But I'm Not a Soldier

"_I wanna stand up, I wanna let go.  
You know, you know - no you don't, you don't,  
I wanna shine on in the hearts of men,  
I want a meaning from the back of my broken hand.  
Another headaches, another heart breaks,  
I am so much older than I can take,  
And my affection, well it comes and goes,  
I need direction to perfection, no no no no,  
Help me out.  
Yeah, you know you got to help me out,  
Yeah, oh don't you put me on the backburner,  
You know you got to help me out."_

—_The Killers_  
"_All These Things That I've Done"_

Six months ago;

"You sure you got everything you need, Kitty?" Logan asked as he escorted the young woman through the main concourse of JFK International Airport. "You got enough clothes to last for the next few days?"

"Logan," Kitty complained as she hauled her carry-on bag over her shoulders, "I'll be fine. Once I get my housing situation squared away at campus, I'll send for the rest of my stuff."

"How you fixed for money?"

"I still have the trust fund my dad set up for me before he...before he died," she replied sorrowfully. "75 grand, enough to at least start up on and pay for college. I'll be okay."

"Yeah, I know," Logan harrumphed. "I just wanna be sure. I mean, you've been through the wringer this year."

"Tell me about it," Kitty groused, remembering the terrible year that had passed. After months trapped aboard the Breakworld Bullet, she finally returned to Earth, only to watch as her family fell apart. Differences in policy, differences in opinion regarding the future of mutant-kind, broke the X-Men into two, in a bitter schism that still hasn't healed. And seeing her beloved Piotr side against her caused her heart to schism just as violently.

She kept a brave face, dealt with the loss and soldiered on for as long as she could. Which turned out to be roughly two months. It was during a pitched battle with a squad of Sentinel robots, purchased by some military group in Eastern Europe to perform some "ethnic cleansing" of the local non-human population, with a very wide definition of "non-human"(specifically, not white-skinned). Wolverine took the main team to the main battle site in Kosovo, with Kitty taking point to take down the lead Sentinel. For all its sophistication, a Sentinel was just a giant robot, with the Central Processing Unit located in its head. All Kitty had to do was run a few phasing passes through the CPU and the Sentinel would be out of commission.

The battlefield was strewn with the corpses of innocent people. Men, women, children, infants, all guilty of only one crime, not being the right skin color. The stink of rotting human flesh, combined with gunpowder, burning tire, cordite and a hundred other stenches of the battlefield assailed her nose, as greasy smoke stung at her eyes and lungs.

She had fought in battles before. In downtown New York, the fields of England, the depths of space, she had fought before and never froze. So why did she freeze in Kosovo? She had racked her brain for the answer since that fatal day, and she still didn't know. One minute she was on the field as a Sentinel came rocketing toward her, and the next she was in the Blackbird heading back to the States, as Logan chewed her out and Rachel yelled at Logan to show an iota of empathy toward her. It was only by a miracle that her inability to act didn't result in injury or loss of life to herself, her teammates, or any civilians in the crossfire.

The next day, Logan approached her in her bedroom. He told her that what happened wasn't her fault, but he had to consider what was best for the team as a whole. He informed her that she was suffering from PTSD, and ordered her to take a few weeks off.

"I was thinking along those lines as well, Logan," Kitty intoned emotionlessly. "But longer than a few weeks." She turned to her mentor, regarding him with an ice-cold stare that even Logan could not argue against. She threw her old yellow-and-black X-Men uniform at Logan and said plainly, "I quit. I already made the plane reservations to Chicago. I'll be packed and out of here in a few hours."

Logan stared back at her, his face set in stone, unreadable. Finally, he answered, "Let me know when you're ready. I'll drive you to the airport." He turned and left, and Kitty started to fill her suitcases.

For Kitty Pryde, it was over. Xavier's dream. Scott and Logan's war. It was all over.

"Flight 426 to Chicago, now boarding at Gate 23," the voice announced over the PA system, dragging Kitty's thoughts back to the here and now.

"That's your flight, Kitty," Logan informed her. "Looks like this is it."

"Yeah," Kitty replied, trace tears beginning to well in her eyes. Without warning, she hugged her longtime mentor figure fiercely, whispering, "I'm sorry I let you down."

"You never let me down, Punkin," Logan assured her, his arms instinctively encircling her waist in a fatherly embrace. "This just wasn't the life for you. I'm sorry it went down this way, Kid."

Kitty backed away from Logan and headed for the gate. "Just do me a favor, Logan. Try and mend fences with Scott. Otherwise, no one's going to survive much longer."

"I'll try," Logan promised. "But he's as stubborn as I am"

"Take care of yourself," she said sadly as she passed through the gate, waving a final farewell.

"You too, Punkin," Logan whispered long after she was out of earshot.

Kitty was surprised at how composed she felt as she found her seat on the plane. She didn't even bother to tell the rest of the team of her departure. No one but Logan was there to see her off. And that's how she wanted it. A quiet ending to her tenure as an X-Man.

She paused briefly to wonder how Lockheed was doing. That ornery dragon hated being carried around in a pet-carrier, and certainly hated wearing that image inducer that disguised him as a Siamese cat. She made a mental note to make it up to him with a large sushi platter when she checked into her hotel in Chicago.

She glanced at her watch; 4:45 pm. Her flight was scheduled to take off at 5 pm. She figured she had enough time to check her email on her smartphone before being told to turn the phone off by the stewardess. Switching her phone on and placing her finger on the the email icon, she nodded as she noticed the new emails in her inbox. Mostly ads, but there was one whose return address she recognized. She immediately pulled up that mail and began to read;

To: kpryde

From: cxavier

_My dearest Kitty;_

_Logan had contacted me to inform me of your decision to retire from the X-Men. I regret to see you leave with such a heavy heart, but given the directions the X-Men have taken as of late, perhaps it is for the best. I have endeavored to maintain a level of neutrality, hoping to perhaps serve as a bridge between the two sides, but I fear that any efforts I would make at helping to achieve a détente between them would be met with hostility at this time, so I have chosen to remain silent._

_I have at recent times questioned whether my long-standing dream of mutant/human coexistence is something that should be abandoned. After all, how can mutants be expected to live peacefully among humans if they can't even live among themselves? But I still feel that the dream is alive. Will it be achieved in my lifetime? It seems unlikely. But in you, in your desire to abandon the increasingly isolationist policies of both Scott and Logan, I see hope yet. Through you, to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., I have been to the mountaintop. _

_I have taken the liberty of contacting the administration of the University of Illinois, Chicago, where you had attended class for over a year before returning to the X-Men. I still have some clout as a professor, and they were more than happy to accommodate my request. A full scholarship awaits you there, including texts, lodging and a modest stipend. As one of my most outstanding students, you have certainly earned it. If you decide to pursue your education elsewhere, by all means contact me if you need any assistance. _

_I wish you all the success and happiness in life that you most certainly deserve._

_Godspeed,_

_Professor Charles Xavier_

The email also contained a phone number, physical address and email address by which he could be reached, as well as contact information for the UIC administration.

She smiled as she re-read the letter. Typical of Professor X, she thought, always looking out for his students. She switched off her smartphone, pulled out her copy of "And Another Thing" from her duffle bag and began to relax, preparing for the plane to take off.

* * *

He opened his eyes, only to clamp them shut again as bright light shone through the window directly on his face. He struggled weakly to rise from his bed but initially his body wouldn't obey him. "Relax, young man," a stern, yet soothing voice urged him.

"Ororo?" he stammered. "Where am I?" He glanced to his right and saw the familiar and welcome face of one of his oldest friends, Ororo Munroe, gazing at him with maternal concern.

"You are in the medical bay, Piotr," Ororo replied, "after nearly succumbing to darkness at the hands of Cyttorak. Fortunately, I was able to contact a friend." Piotr Rasputin placed his hand above his face, shading his eyes, and turned toward the unfamiliar figure standing next to Ororo.

The slender figure regarded him with intelligent ice-blue eyes. His saturnine face was framed with jet-black hair, highlighted by silver streaks at the temples, and an immaculately trimmed beard and mustache. He wore a blue turtleneck with a black sportscoat, but even in such conventional threads, the young man recognized him.

"Steven Strange?" he asked, scarcely believing his eyes.

"At your service, Piotr," the former Sorcerer Supreme answered. "It is fortunate that your friend Storm contacted me when she did. The Crimson Bands of Cyttorak are not to be used lightly. Another few minutes and your soul would have been destroyed by the demon, and your body nothing but a shell for Cyttorak to use to blight the world again."

"When you took on the power of the Juggernaut," Ororo explained in strained but patient tones, "it seemed that your strength of will was sufficient to hold Cyttorak's influence at bay. But it was slowly consuming you. And I fear that he had an ally in his efforts to corrupt you."

"We found some scrolls on the base," Strange took over the explanation from Ororo. "Powerful magicks designed to bind the Juggernaut to someone else's will, to make you a mindless engine of destruction. Indeed, the Juggernaut had wrought considerable damage on Utopia base before I was able to restrain him."

"Let me guess," Piotr answered, his heart falling in his chest with a sickening finality. "Illyana tried to bind me, to allow Cyttorak full control of my body."

Ororo nodded somberly. "I'm so sorry, Little Brother."

"Do not apologize, Ororo," Piotr replied. "It was my own folly that brought this on myself. Tell me, Strange, am I free of the Juggernaut's curse?"

"That you are, my friend," Strange assured him. "I was able to remove the bands of Cyttorak from your wrists, and their power is trapped within."

"And Illyana?"

"She disappeared after Strange freed you," Ororo responded, a sharp bitter edge to her voice. "She had betrayed us, for reasons that we still don't understand. Scott is leading a team to apprehend her."

Piotr shook his head sadly. "So it is as she warned me," he muttered to himself. "She is not the sister I remember. Katya was right about her. If only I had listenend." He attempted to rise from the bed, but found himself back in a sitting position abruptly.

"I would advise against overexertion," Strange warned him. "You may find your own strength somewhat lessened from what it was before, but your natural armored form is still most formidable."

"Thank you, Dr. Strange," Piotr replied sullenly as he slowly rose from the bed and stood on legs that were growing less shaky with each second, "but I fear I am not powerful enough for Scott's plans. Even if I was, I find that I have no interest in carrying them out. How soon before Scott and his team returns?"

"A few hours, I believe," Ororo answered.

"Then I had better move quickly," Piotr replied as he made his way to his quarters. "I have no desire to be here when Scott returns. He wants soldiers for his crusade. And I have finally realized that, although I may be a fighter, I am no soldier. Let me start packing. At least a few days' worth of clothing. I can purchase anything else I require later."

"On what, Little Brother?"

"After our time in Australia," Piotr explained as he entered his bedroom and located a suitcase, "when we fell into the Siege Perilous, I had enjoyed a few months as a fairly successful painter named Peter Nicholas. I had sold several of my paintings during that time, enough to live fairly comfortably and set up a respectable savings account. When I returned to the X-Men two years ago, Emma Frost helped me sell some of my other works and parlayed my savings into a sizable portfolio. Worry not for me, Big Sister," he smiled wanly, "I'll not want for basic necessities. Please inform Scott that I have resigned from the X-Men, and do not wish him or any of his team to contact me at this time. Or indeed ever again in my lifetime."

"That may prove difficult," Ororo answered darkly. "For I have no intention of remaining her a second longer that I absolutely have to myself. The X-Men, for all intents and purposes, no longer exist, and I cannot in good conscience remain here. I had agreed to stay behind to see that you were well and say my goodbyes."

"Were you planning on flying out?" Piotr asked.

"Dr. Strange was kind enough to offer to transport me away from here. He will take me to Avengers' Mansion in New York, and from there I will travel to Wakanda. I have spoken with my husband, and T'Challa agrees with me that I would do greater good there, helping our people until he is able to return to the throne."

"I would be happy to take you to the mansion as well, Piotr," Dr. Strange offered. "Or anywhere else you desire."

"Thank you, Strange," Piotr replied as he closed his suitcase. "Avengers' Mansion would be fine. Perhaps I can contact Logan while I'm there."

"Did you wish to join his team?" Ororo mused.

"No, merely to touch bases," Piotr answered. "I find that I don't agree with either side in this terrible feud which the X-Men have become. All I wish is to know that my friends are well. That Katya is well," he admitted, blushing slightly. "I doubt she will see me again, but if I know she is well, then at least I can move forward with my life."

"And what of Scott?"

Piotr smiled sardonically. "I'll leave him an email."

Ororo nodded, recognizing the wisdom in her friend's words. "Be happy, Little Brother," she told him as she embraced him one last time.

"And you, Big Sister," he responded.

Strange interrupted the touching moment. "Are you ready to go?"

"My suitcases are in the hall. You, Piotr?"

"This is all I need for now," he answered, lifting his case. "I travel light."

"In that case, let us away." Holding his forefingers steepled in front of his nose, Strange muttered a complex string of arcane syllables of a language unspoken by man for millennia. In a twinkling the three heroes had departed the headquarters of Cyclops' X-Men.

And two of the world's most powerful mutants began to chart their own destinies.

_End of Prologue_


	2. Prologue 2: State of Play

_AN: Again, Marvel owns them, I don't. Spoilers for Schism, plus rampant speculation on what happens after Schism. This is essentially the rest of my prologue, providing some backstory on the state of the X-Men in my main story, explaining where the X-Men are as the story begins._

Mekanix: Shadow and Steel

Prologue 2:

State of Play

To: Steve Rogers

From: Logan

Re: Report on the current status of the X-Men

Steve:

As you requested, I will give a brief report on the events of the recent conflict with the mutant known as Hope, and my personal impressions on the status of the X-Men. Or what's left of them.

As you are aware, Scott "Cyclops" Summers and I split on ideological issues; he wanted to create an army of mutants, presumably for mutual preservation, while I believed that the younger mutants deserved a chance to be people first. He and his followers remained on the Utopia base off the coast of California, isolating themselves from the rest of the world, while I attempted to rebuild Xavier's institute in Westchester County, New York. We both managed to avoid each other for the most part, while tracking the remaining rogue Sentinel robots that were purchased by various governments for whatever purposes.

What was it that Santayana said, about a fanatic being someone who redoubles his efforts while forgetting his reason for doing so?

When Hope was born, a former X-Man known as Bishop attempted to kill her as an infant. He claimed that Hope would grow up to become the greatest threat to mutant-kind, that in his own future she was responsible for triggering a war between mutants and humans that ultimately devastated the entire planet. Turns out he wasn't wrong. Hope had been raised by Cable in an environment of conflict. We should have known that her only response to any setback would be one of violence.

Her powers had grown exponentially over the last few months, to the point where she rivaled even Jean Grey at the height of her Phoenix powers. Combined with her mental ability to influence the minds of the younger mutants who flocked to her banner(the "Five Lights"), she was now able to influence other mutants who had sided with Cyclops, including Magneto, Sebastian Shaw and Cyclops himself. Emma Frost, the android Danger and Illyana "Magik" Rasputin proved to be resistant to her influence, but chose to side with Hope for their own purposes; Frost simply wanted to be on the winning side, while Danger secretly had an agenda to use Hope's powers to eliminate all mutants, while Magik now willingly served the demons of Limbo and also saw Hope as a means to an end.

As you know, my team of X-Men sided with the Avengers, Fantastic Four and X-Factor to deal with Hope's forces when they attacked Manhattan with the intent of destroying NYC as a show of force. The battle was fierce, and Hope's team seemed to have us on the ropes, until the renegade Omega-level mutant Quentin Quire was able to strike directly at Hope, who by now had been driven entirely insane by her power levels, which she could no longer control. The two powerful telepaths somehow cancelled each other out in a huge exchange of psionic energy. By the time the smoke cleared, both Hope and Quentin were evidently vaporized.

Once Hope was taken down, her mental influence on the other X-Men had dispersed, leaving most of them disoriented. Once confronted by the Avengers, they surrendered without a fight, and most of them were released without any charges. Emma Frost was a notable exception; she blindly attacked the Avengers and was taken down without a struggle. She is now in prison, wearing a power suppression collar, awaiting trial for several charges of terrorism.

Magneto disappeared for parts unknown. I would advise that he is still a major threat to the world at large. Sebastian Shaw was reported sited in Boston, where he is rumored to be rebuilding the Hellfire Club. Magik is believed to have retreated to Limbo, her current plans and power levels unknown. I would advise that Doctor Strange should keep an eye out for her. I know he's no longer Sorcerer Supreme, but I trust that he would want to monitor her. Danger was apparently destroyed during the battle, but until someone locates her CPU I wouldn't take her off the threat list. As for Hope and Quentin, DNA traces were found at the blast-site, but the first rule of this business is, "You don't find a body, they ain't dead."

As for the Five Lights, they and other younger members of the X-Men have apparently relocated to Westchester. Following the war between the two X-Men teams, Professor Charles Xavier has decided to re-enter the game, and re-establish the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. He is no longer interested in creating a team of mutant heroes. For all intents and purposes, the X-Men don't really exist anymore. However, he hopes to provide an environment that will allow them, and other young mutants, to learn to control their powers and integrate more fully with humanity. Former X-Men Rogue and Remy "Gambit" LeBeau, along with so-called 'New Mutants' Dani Moonstar, Sam "Cannonball" Guthrie, Doug "Cypher" Ramsey and Robert "Sunspot" da Costa, have joined Xavier's staff as teachers and assistants, while other younger mutants, such as Sooraya "Dust" Qadir, Cecily "Mercury" Kincaid, Hisako "Armor" Ichici, Megan "Pixie" Gwynn and Josh "Elixir" Foley, have signed on as fellow students. Chuck promised that he would contact the Avengers periodically, and I wish him the best of luck. Given how the current public opinion against mutants has been at a fever pitch since this whole thing's gone down, he's gonna need it.

As for the remaining former X-Men, at least the ones I am aware of: Hank "Beast" McCoy and I are still active with the Avengers. Scott Summers has dropped the name Cyclops, retreated to Anchorage, Alaska, where he's now working on a fishing barge. I personally visited him to offer an olive branch. He told me to go to Hell. I'd advise that he be left alone. He needs to heal.

Mutant-vampire Jubilation Lee was cited in Paris. She assures me that she is staying out of trouble. I'll be looking in on her from time to time. The techno-organic alien Warlock has chosen to depart the Earth and return to his home galaxy. Rachel Grey and Kurt "Nightcrawler" Wagner have relocated to England, where I understand they're in contact with Captain Britain and his metahuman agents in MI-13. Lorna "Polaris" Dane and Alex "Havok" Summers have joined the mutant detective team X-Factor. Betsy "Psylocke" Braddock, Warren "Archangel" Worthington and Wade "Deadpool" Wilson have gone underground, but I doubt that they are a threat. Bobby "Iceman" Drake has relocated to Los Angeles and is going into business. Alison "Dazzler" Blaire is currently on a concert tour. Ororo "Storm" Munroe has returned to Wakanda with her husband T'Challa, where they reign as king and queen.

Finally, a personal request; two remaining former X-Men chose to quit their respective teams three months before the Hope incident; Peter "Colossus" Rasputin, and Kitty "Shadowcat" Pryde. Kitty is currently attending poli-sci classes in Chicago, and Peter told me he was thinking of taking advantage of their arts curriculum. They've done more for mutant-kind and for the world in general over the last few years than most of us. My request is that for at least the next few years, we let them live their lives in peace. Don't rope them into any big world-threatening mess if we can avoid it. Give them a chance at a normal life. They certainly deserve it.

Regards,

Wolverine.


	3. None But the Brave

_AN: All disclaimers apply. Spoilers for Schism, along with speculation. In this universe, Piotr Rasputin and Kitty Pryde are starting new lives away from the X-Men. So much for concept, let's get to the action..._

Shadow and Steel

Book 1: The Chicago Way

By Kirayoshi

"_They pull a knife, you pull a gun.  
He sends one of yours to the hospital,  
you send one of his to the morgue.  
That's the Chicago way."_

—_Sean Connery, "The Untouchables"_

Chapter one

None But the Brave

"_Tonight down on Union Street,  
I'm thinkin' back baby to you and me,  
The way you used to be  
And your words come back to me.  
From passing cars, their voices sing out,  
In empty bars where guitars ring out,  
We'd walk and talk about  
Who'd be the lucky ones to get out,  
You said, none baby but the brave,  
No one baby but the brave,  
Those strong enough to save  
Something from what they gave."_

—_Bruce Springsteen_  
"_None But the Brave"_

"I don't understand why you don't use your own computer, Kitty," Stan Polaski groused.

Kitty Pryde smiled at her classmate. "What, I like libraries," she explained. "Besides, if I go to my dorm and do this report, I'll end up spending half an hour on Facebook looking up old friends." Or attempting to look them up, she thought absently to herself. "There," she announced triumphantly as she clicked 'Save' on her MSWord document, "my 10-page report on 'Plunkett of Tammany Hall' is in the can! I'll do some final edits tomorrow."

"And the crowd goes wild. Yay." Kitty giggled and playfully swatted at Stan as she closed her laptop.

Kitty enjoyed her frequent encounters with Stan Polaski, one of the first friends she made when she returned to the University of Illinois, Chicago. They had met during her first week of classes, in her Political History class, were partnered up by her professor in a research project tracking United States political reforms of the early 20th Century, and became fast friends from there. As they left the library and he flashed his goofy grin at her, she marveled at how comfortable she felt around her new friend.

_The way he could make me feel at ease with a kind word or a crude joke, _she found herself thinking for the umpteenth time,_ just like Kurt, God give him peace. And he's not exactly a hardship on the eyes either. _

This was certainly true, considering his lean athletic frame, dark brown wavy hair and sea-green eyes that sparkled with merry intelligence from behind his constantly animated face. _If only he weren't gay..._

She banished the stray thought as soon as it entered her head. Stan had freely accepted who and what he was, and Kitty couldn't be happier for him. Besides, the last thing she wanted was the baggage of a new relationship. Not so soon after...

"This is Houston calling Space Cadet Pryde," Stan placed his hand over his mouth to muffle his voice as he regained his friend's attention. "Come in, Pryde, over." He punctuated his sentence with a slight percussive sound in the back of his throat.

Kitty shook her head, dispelling the bittersweet memories thinking of him always brought up. "Oh, sorry, Stan, just flaking off. No big."

"Hey, no problemo, senorita," he teased her. "Hey, it's getting dark, how about I walk you over to your dorm?"

"Thanks for the offer," Kitty answered, "but I'll be fine. Any muggers try to take me down, I'll throw a little krav maga at 'em."

"I don't doubt it," Stan chuckled. "Oh, and don't forget, karaoke at the Flame Pit tomorrow night. You up for it?"

"And miss your Freddie Mercury impression?" Kitty grinned. "I'll be there."

"Great, see ya there!" As Stan turned to leave, he started singing, "Tonight...I'm gonna have myself a real good time..."

Kitty slung her laptop bag over her shoulder and made the hike to her dorm. She hoped that Lockheed was feeling better; he had complained of a sour stomach that morning after last night's sushi binge. Fortunately, she was able to swing a special dispensation for a single apartment for herself and Lockheed with no roommates. The head of campus housing was able to assist her in securing the apartment, and for that she was eternally grateful. The fact that the head of housing was one of three staff members(the others being the dean and her former counselor from when she had attended UIC roughly two years earlier) who was aware that Kitty Pryde was a mutant certainly helped in that regard.

As she passed a campus events board, an all-too familiar name on a posted flyer caught her eye. The flyer promoted a "Pro-Humanity Rally" from the campus group PURITY. She rolled her eyes in disgust; she had had run-ins with PURITY in the past, during her freshman year, enough to know that "Pro-Humanity" was code for "Anti-Mutant". "Jagoffs," she snarled and quickened her pace away from the event board. She wasn't about to allow those bigots to spoil her evening.

She entered the dorm building, checked her mailbox(empty) and entered the elevator. The doors slid open at the third floor, and she turned to her left for her dorm. She made three steps forward...

"Katherine," that so-familiar voice greeted her stiffly. "I apologize for intruding."

He stood there by the door to her dorm, his shoulders sagging and almost stooped. He wore blue khakis, a gray polo shirt and a dark blue warm-up jacket. His hair was still as black and wavy, his eyes still as blue as she remembered. But there was a haunted quality, a deeply embedded sorrow in his eyes, one who has seen one too many war zones to sleep soundly.

A look she saw in her own mirror every morning.

"Well," Piotr Rasputin said plainly, shaking her out of her fugue, "either tell me you're happy to see me or punch me in the jaw and tell me to stay out of your life."

Kitty stared hard at the man who stood before her. Her friend. Her teammate. The man she once loved. The man who broke her heart so many times. The man whose heart she broke more than once...

The man she never stopped loving.

"I'm glad to see you, Piotr," she whispered. She ran toward him and hugged him fiercely. Hot tears fell from her eyes and soaked his jacket. He returned the embrace just as tightly, and the two of them stood in front of her dorm for well over a minute before she suddenly disengaged the hug.

"What happened to you," Kitty asked, as she scanned Piotr's body from head to toe. "You're...well, you're thinner than I remember. I mean, you're not exactly skinny, but..."

"Not quite as bulky?" Piotr finished her sentence. "Da. There is an explanation. But perhaps we shouldn't be having this discussion in the hallway."

"You're right," Kitty admitted, looking around. It was a quiet evening for a Friday so far, mainly because most of the dorm residents were at the Pavilion watching the Flames play University of Chicago. She would have gone herself if she didn't have a report due on Monday. "Hey, you want to come in for a moment? I just have to take care of some stuff here, then we can go somewhere and talk, okay?"

"I'd like that," Piotr nodded. Kitty unlocked her door and gestured for Piotr to enter.

Before he could take more than one step across the threshold, a guttural growl rose up in protest. "You got some nerve showing your face here, you son of a—"

"Lockheed!" Kitty complained as she gently pushed Piotr into her dorm and approached the housecat-sized dragon that fluttered menacingly in front of Piotr's face. "It's okay, Lock, Pete and I are talking it out. And I don't want you making threats. The last thing we need is the sprinkler system going off again because you lost your temper. Campus security already suspects that I'm smoking pot in my dorm as it is." She took the alien dragon in her hands and stroked his flat head behind the ridges of his eyebrows. "Now Peter and I are going to have dinner and I'll be back in a couple of hours. I'll bring back a California roll, okay?"

The dragon harrumphed slightly, then acquiesced. Turning his head toward Piotr and regarding him with squinting yellow eyes, he added, "If you ever hurt her again, Rasputin, you'll wake up on fire."

Piotr nodded sheepishly. "You have my word, Lockheed, I'll be a perfect gentleman." Lockheed smirked knowingly before turning his attention away from the young Russian farmboy.

"Okay," Kitty announced, "I just plugged my laptop into the recharger, so we're good to go. How does Five Guys sound, Pete? My treat."

"Sounds fine," Piotr agreed as he followed her out of her dorm.

Twenty minutes later, they sat in a secluded booth at Five Guys Burgers with two double-beef hamburgers, two large Cokes and a mountain of french fries. Peter noted the typical diner atmosphere around him; red vinyl seats with black and white tile. Clearly Kitty wanted a quiet public place to speak with him. Given how bitter she was when their relationship ended, he was amazed and grateful that she was willing to give him that much.

"So, Peter," Kitty started. "Why did you come to Chicago?"

Piotr regarded Kitty with a knowing gaze. It was always like her to cut straight to the point. "I wanted to assure myself that you were doing well. And to apologize for my actions. I made so many mistakes, Katherine, and I hurt you deeply. And for that I am truly sorry."

Kitty considered dismissing his apology with a smile and a wave. After all, she had certainly made her share of mistakes over the last few years. But the haunted look remained in Piotr's eyes. He needed to make his peace, above all else. "I accept your apology, Piotr," she declared slowly. "If you can accept mine for walking out on you after you became the new Juggernaut."

"Accepted, but not necessary," Piotr nodded. "Given the options, you did the only thing you could."

"But what happened, Peter?" Kitty asked as she took a quick bite from her hamburger. "I mean, you still look like you're in great shape, but it looks like you lost around fifteen pounds of muscle."

"Closer to twenty," Piotr admitted as he downed a few fries. "A final jest on the part of Cyttorak after I was finally able to shed his unearthly power."

"Yeah, that was my next question. What happened to the Juggernaut armor? Did you drop it?"

Piotr nodded. "For months, it felt more and more that I had become a passenger in my own body, that something else was controlling my motions. I don't make excuses for what I've done, but I didn't realize until it was almost too late—" Piotr lowered his head, taking another bite out of his hamburger for courage. "You were right about Illyana. Whatever she had become, she was not the sister I knew."

Kitty shook her head sadly. "Believe me, Peter, you have no idea how wrong I wish I was."

"From what I learned after the fact," Piotr continued to explain, "Cyttorak had taken possession of my body from the moment I donned the Juggernaut's armor. It was so subtle at first that I didn't realize that my thoughts weren't truly mine until it was almost too late. And Illyana, she sought to accelerate the process, to make me her slave. When the X-Men split in two over Scott and Logan's feud, I chose to remain with Illyana, hoping to reach her, to save her somehow."

"But she couldn't be saved." Kitty's words were a statement, not a question, and were spoken with leaden finality.

"Worse than that. She didn't want to be saved. In the end, she chose to serve the demons of Limbo, of her own free will. It wasn't a matter of Limbo having stolen her soul. Her soul was corrupted beyond saving. She made her choice. And by following her, I nearly joined her in damnation." He paused briefly to take a sip from his cup, and Kitty didn't press him for more details; he needed to tell what happened, his way.

"From what Ororo told me when I began to recover, she had summoned the sorcerer Doctor Strange to help rid me of Cyttorak's influence. With his aid, I was able to shed the gauntlets and the armor of the Juggernaut. But not without cost; Cyttorak's influence had weakened my physical body, although thanks to the added power of the Juggernaut no one was aware. Evidently I had lost some body mass during my period of possession. After that, I chose to abandon Scott's team, and ended up staying at the Avengers compound to recuperate. Hank McCoy gave me a complete physical and declared that I was in robust health despite the loss of body mass. However, it has affected my mutant powers, lessening them to a degree. Where I could lift close to 90 tons prior to Cyttorak's possession, at present my upper limit appears to be 60 tons."

"Oh you poor thing," Kitty joked lightly. Soberly, she added, "Hey, I'm sorry things worked out the way they did. Whatever was powering the Juggernaut when he tried to destroy San Francisco, he was taking literally everything the X-Men could throw at him. You did what you had to do to save us. So again, I'm sorry that I couldn't see that, and I'm sorry that I let it break us up."

"Again, there is no need for you to apologize. Under the circumstances, you had no other choice."

"Still sucks that it went down the way it did," Kitty admitted. "So, you join Logan's side after that?"

"No, Katherine," Piotr answered. "I find that I have become disillusioned by the X-Men."

"You and me both," Kitty agreed. "I mean, even if Logan and Scott both had good reasons for the positions that they took, and we all had good reasons for choosing sides, in the end the X-Men just degenerated into an East Coast/West Coast rappers war, with Scott and Logan playing 'Mine's bigger than yours'. I couldn't take it any more either, that's why I decided to finish getting my poli-sci degree. So, what are your plans?"

Piotr thought for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. "I really don't know for certain. I am considering higher education myself, perhaps in the field of graphic arts. Professer Xavier had emailed me to inform me that he would be happy to set up a scholarship in whatever university I choose."

"Hey, he paid my way through UIC," Kitty commented, "don't knock the Xavier plan. And UIC has a decent arts program if you're interested."

"Are you certain, Katherine? You wouldn't object to running into me on campus?"

"No, Peter, I wouldn't mind at all," Kitty answered, her brow furrowing in thought. "And what's this 'Katherine' jazz anyway? What happened to 'Katya' or 'Kitty'?"

Piotr lowered his head, almost unwilling to meet her eyes. "Given how bitter our parting was," he admitted, "I didn't feel that either was appropriate. 'Kitty' implies friendship, and I wasn't sure that you would regard me as a friend after all that we've been through."

Without hesitation, Kitty reached across the table and took Piotr's hand in hers. Despite the loss of weight, his hand felt as strong and firm in hers as she remembered from when they were lovers. "Piotr," she whispered gently, "you can call me 'Katya' if you want. Or 'Kitty'. Hell, I've been known to answer to 'Hey you!' But please, I hate 'Katherine'. That's what Mom would call me when I was a kid before giving me a time-out!"

He found himself chuckling despite his somber attitude. "Kath—er, Katya," he assured her, still holding her hand, "I have not come here to claim what we once had, or to ask you to take me back. For all I know you have someone else in your life now. And even if you were to offer to take me back, I would turn you down gently. We have been through too much to simply pick up where we left off as though the last eight months didn't happen. All I would ask of you is that I be granted the opportunity to regain your trust, and that we can somehow work our way back to being friends again."

Kitty regarded Piotr with a warm and welcoming smile. "Two things, Peter. First, no, I'm not dating anyone right now. I've been too busy dealing with my studies. And second, what you just said now pretty much assures me that you don't need to earn my trust. You have it, unconditionally." She gave his hand a gentle squeeze before taking it back. "I can't imagine that we'll be anything less than very close friends. As for the rest—we'll figure it out as we go along. Okay?"

"Katya," Piotr smiled, "nothing would please me more." For the next few minutes, they ate their burgers and fries in a companionable silence.

After finishing her burger, Kitty glanced at her watch. "Okay, the late-night sushi stand is still open, and I promised Lockheed I'd pick up a California roll. Where are you staying tonight anyway?"

"A hotel in Oak Park called the Write Inn," Piotr answered. "Close to the campus and not too expensive."

"I've been there before," Kitty nodded. "Not a bad place. But what I would recommend is that you submit a college application ASAP if you want to be accepted for next quarter."

"I'll look into that tomorrow," Piotr stood up from the table and gathered the paper and foil that remained from their burgers.

"You might have better luck on Monday, tomorrow being Saturday and all. Hey, I'll be at a campus hangout tomorrow evening, the Flame Pit. They're doing a karaoke night. You wanna go with?"

"I would be delighted. Shall I meet you at your dorm?"

"Works for me," Kitty smiled. She pulled out the receipt from her meal, located a pen in her purse and scribbled hastily on the receipt. "Here's my phone number. Call me when you're ready to leave the hotel."

"I'll see you tomorrow then," Piotr replied. "Until then," he took her hand in his and lifted it up to kiss her knuckle.

"Sleep well, Piotr," Kitty replied, smiling.

The two former X-Men departed, he for his hotel, she for a late-night sushi run. As she left the Five Guys, she couldn't help but smile again. A missing part of her life had somehow returned to her. A void she didn't even know she had was made evident to her even as it was filled by the return of the man she never stopped loving. She had no idea what the future would hold for herself and Piotr, but for the first time in a very long time, she found herself looking forward to tomorrow.

* * *

Nick Spinoza didn't like being kept waiting, especially this late at night by a warehouse at one of the less reputable piers that lined Lake Michigan. He had merchandise to push, but from what he heard that was going to be a risky proposition.

Word was that a new competitor was muscling in on his territory, and he didn't like to deal with that kind of pressure. Someone from the New York area, according to the rumor-stream that flowed through the Chicago night. Someone who's had more than a few run-ins with the costumed nutjobs that seemed to breed in New York; Spider-Man, Daredevil, supposedly he's managed to survive dealing with both of those so-called "superheroes". Which left Spinoza increasingly worried about his odds for seeing another day.

"Spinoza?" a voice like gravel rattling in a metal box asked from the darkness.

"Who wants to know?" he asked, his hand instinctively reaching for the 9mm Glock in his jacket holster.

Suddenly a loop of piano wire slipped over his head and tightened around his neck. He struggled vainly to reach the hands that were pulling the wire taut behind him, his legs jerking like a marionette with a missing string. After a minute or so, the jerking movements stopped. The murderer looked blandly at the corpse at his feet, before barking to his associate.

The man with the gravel voice stepped forward. A huge wall of a man wearing a ratty trenchcoat and slouch hat. "Shall I dispose of the body, Boss?"

"Leave it where it is," his employer answered, stepping over the body and into the light of a nearby streetlamp. His pale white skin gleamed sickeningly in the incandescent light overhead. His impeccably tailored suit, gloves, shoes and spats were all roughly the same shade of chalk gray. He smiled broadly, showing a mouthful of teeth that he had filed into sharp points. "It's time to let the Chicago crime families know that there's a new player in town," he announced, staring across the pier toward the brackish water of Lake Michigan.

"And his name is Tombstone."


	4. A Perfect Day

_Author's Note; So you know that I didn't just pull him out of a hat, Tombstone is a recurring Spider-Man villain, a bald albino crime-lord. He figured prominently in the cartoon "Spectacular Spider-Man". Detective Daniel Wyzcenko is also an established Marvel character. He appeared in X-Men Unlimited #38 as a Chicago cop whom Kitty Pryde ended up tailing because he bore more than a passing resemblance to Piotr Rasputin, who was presumed dead at the time. _

_Disclaimers: "Don't Stop Me Now" was written and recorded by Queen, while "Badlands" is by Bruce Springsteen._

Shadow and Steel:

The Chicago Way

Chapter two

A Perfect Day

"_Just a perfect day,  
Problems all left alone,  
Weekenders on our own,  
It's such fun._

_Just a perfect day,  
You made me forget myself,  
I thought I was someone else,  
Someone good._

_Oh, it's such a perfect day,  
I'm glad I spent it with you.  
Oh, such a perfect day,  
You just keep me hanging on—  
You just keep me hanging on!"_

—_Lou Reed_  
"_Perfect Day"_

_Man, I hate days like this_, Detective Daniel Wyzcenko thought morosely as he neared the crime scene. From what the dispatcher indicated it looked like a mob execution, but not one that matched the M.O. of any established Chicago crime families. Which meant a new player. Which meant that the powder keg that was organized crime in Chicago was about to get a match tossed into it.

"Detective Wyzcenko," the detective flashed his badge to the waiting officers. "What's the situation?"

"Victim identified as Nick Spinoza," an officer (his badge identified him as Greene) replied as he led Wyzcenko to the body. "Suspected of drug dealing, no charges able to stick. These red marks on his neck," he pointed the tip of his pen toward the markings, "indicate strangulation with a thin strong wire. Very few signs of a struggle. Whoever it was must have arranged to meet Spinoza before offing him. And check this out," Greene added, pulling away the corpse's jacket with his pen, just enough to reveal the shoulder holster. "9mm Glock," he identified the gun the victim was carrying. "Judging from the positioning of the right hand, the vic was about to reach for his piece when the wire slipped around his neck."

"Mob execution?" Wyzcenko probed further.

"Possibly," Greene replied. "We're taking the corpse downtown. Hopefully they'll be able to find some more pieces to this puzzle. "

"Let's hope so," Wyzcenko agreed. Glancing at the asphalt beneath his feet, he noted some tire tracks leading from the warehouse by the pier. "Getaway car?"

"Doubt it," another detective on the scene answered from behind him. Flashing her badge, she introduced herself; "Detective Soames. You Wyzcenko?" Daniel nodded, and she continued. "No signs of burning rubber, and the tracks are spaced too widely for a regular car. Judging from the spacing, I'd say they're from a truck or van. Possibly hauling some merchandise."

"I thought this pier was deserted," Officer Greene commented.

"Which gives us an idea of what kind of 'merchandise' we're dealing with," Wyzcenko commented. "Cordon off the warehouse; we need to know what was being stored there."

"I'll wake up a judge and get a search warrant," Soames offered as she withdrew a cel-phone from her jacket pocket.

"Good. I'm going to help comb the area. Let's see if we can find any other evidence. Some witnesses would be ideal at this point." The detective left the other officers to transport the body, while he joined the search for clues.

He knew that they would need more detailed evidence to insure any kind of search warrant, let alone building a case to satisfy a jury, assuming they even caught the perp. However, he knew what must have gone down. Piano-wire strangulation, the missing truck, tire-tracks from a deserted warehouse. They all added up to a mob hit. Something was being stored in that warehouse. Drugs, laundered money, whatever it was, someone wanted it bad enough to kill Spinoza.

The threat of a new gang war. Not what any cop wanted to see first thing in the morning.

* * *

The Flame Pit, 7:30 pm:

"I'm burning through the sky, yeah, 200 degrees,  
That's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit,  
I'm moving faster than the speed of light,  
I'm gonna make a supersonic man out of you!"

Kitty and Piotr took their seats at the booth closest to the karaoke stage just as Stan was nearly done singing. Kitty relaxed and ordered a strawberry smoothie while Piotr requested a Guinness, and the two of them settled in to enjoy the rest of his performance.

"Don't stop me now! I'm having such a good time, yeah I'm having a ball!  
Don't stop me now! If you wanna have a good time, just give me a call!"

Piotr took note of how Kitty started clapping her hands in rhythm to Stan's song. It was obvious from the attention she was paying the singer that he was a friend of hers. Kitty had assured Piotr the previous evening that she was not involved with anyone, but he wondered if there was something starting between her and this Stan person. He resolved that, should she be interested in pursuing a relationship with Stan, he would not stand in her way. As much as he wished to express the love he still held for her, he decided that it would be better to wrestle with his affections. He still remembered the look of sheer betrayal on Kitty's face when she ended their relationship before. When he chose Illyana over her, and allowed himself to succumb to the power of the Juggernaut. A choice that cost him his love, his heart, and nearly his soul, all for the desperate bid to save his sister. A sister whom, in the end, was beyond salvation.

"Don't stop me, 'cause I'm having a good time,  
Don't stop me, 'cause I'm having a good time,  
Never wanna stop at all—"

Stan's flamboyant performance came to an end, and he took a theatrical bow as Kitty and a few other people at various tables applauded. Stan stepped down from the stage and greeted Kitty at their booth. "Why Kitty, you've been holding out on me," Stan teased her as he glanced at Piotr. "Who's your friend here?"

"Hey, Stan," Kitty greeted her friend. "This is Piotr Rasputin, a friend of mine from my old school."

"Well, no school like old school," Stan answered as he shook Piotr's hand. "Pleased to meet you, Piotr."

"Likewise," Piotr nodded as they Stan sat next to Kitty. He was certainly a friendly person, outgoing and sociable. The waiter arrived with Piotr's Guinness and Kitty's smoothie. "May I ask how you and Kitty know each other?"

"We take a few of the same poli-sci classes together," Stan grinned. "And if you're wondering, no we're not dating."

"I hadn't been wondering as it happens," Piotr admitted. "Not that I would object if you were."

"Peter," Kitty interrupted in a stage whisper, "he's gay."

Piotr regarded Stan more closely at this revelation. "Guilty as charged," Stan admitted. "And with my luck, you're straight."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," Piotr shrugged his shoulders casually.

"Don't suppose there are any more at home like you."

"Regrettably, no," Piotr answered, and only Kitty could hear the faintest air of sadness in his answer. Changing the topic, he quickly added, "I take it you're here for karaoke night."

"Yep," Stan grinned hugely. As he glanced back at the stage, a mid-twenties math major was struggling valiantly with Eminem's "Slim Shady". "If you need a list of songs, I'd be happy to..."

"No thanks," Piotr demurred. "I'm quite happy to be part of the audience this evening."

Stan shook his head, chuckling. "Sorry, Petey boy, it don't work that way. It's like 'Fight Club'; if this is your first night here, you have to get on the stage."

"Hey, easy, Stan," Kitty stood beside Piotr, defending his honor. "He's considering applying for the graphic arts program next semester, let's not have him running for the hills now."

"I won't scare him off, Kitty," Stan assured her, "but if his singing voice is anything like his speaking voice, I'm sure he has nothing to be embarrassed about. Piotr, I insist that you sing tonight."

"I don't know," he hesitated, turning toward Kitty.

Kitty just shrugged her shoulders, sipping her smoothie. "You'd better give in now, or he'll choose a song for you. And knowing Stan, he'd probably stick you with something by Kate Perry."

"And I would, wouldn't I?" Stan punctuated his statement with a throaty cackle. Piotr raised his eyes in exasperation and surrendered to the inevitable.

Taking the song list that Stan offered, he scanned the sheet briefly, before selecting a song title he recognized. "So whom do I see about my selection?"

"The DJ's over on the other side of the stage," Stan informed him, "he'll set you up."

Piotr lifted himself from the booth and walked over to the DJ. As he provided his selection, Stan asked Kitty, "So, level with me, what's the story? Old flame, just friends?"

"Old boyfriend," Kitty admitted. "First love. As for what he and I are now, I'm still trying to figure that out."

"Do I hear the words 'It's complicated' wafting in our general direction?" Stan teased her.

Kitty said nothing for a second as she took another drink from her smoothie. At length she observed, "You know as well as I do, Stan. The very nature of human attraction can be boiled down to the words 'It's complicated'."

"Amen, sister, amen," Stan agreed. As they pondered the folly that was human attraction, the DJ announced, "And now, taking the stage, Peter Rasputin!"

Piotr calmly took the microphone in his hands as the track started. Following eight bars of uptempo guitar and keyboards, Piotr began, his voice a gentle rumble, which seemed appropriate for his choice:

"Lights out tonight, trouble in the heartland,  
Got a head-on collision smashing in my guts, man,  
Caught in a crossfire that I don't understand.  
But there's one thing I know for sure—  
I don't give a damn for the same ol' played out scenes,  
I don't give a damn for just the in-betweens,  
Baby, I want the heart, I want the soul, I want control right now!"

Kitty had to smile as he continued to sing. _Springsteen,_ she mused privately. _I must be one of a handful of people who knows that Piotr's a huge Springsteen fan. _She clapped her hands on the downbeat as the song went on.

"Talking 'bout a dream, tryin' to make it real,  
You wake up in the night with a feeling so real,  
You spend your life waiting for a moment that just won't come,  
Don't just waste your time waiting,  
Badlands! You gotta live it every day,  
Let the broken hearts stand as the price you gotta pay,  
Keep pushing 'til it's understood  
That these badlands start treating us good!"

Kitty was not the kind of person who would ascribe the meaning of anyone's life, especially her own, in the lyrics of a song, but she had to admit that if any song could capture the essence, the substance, the person that is Piotr Rasputin, then this may be it. Here was a man who had worked, fought, and strived for a better life, not only for himself but for those he loved, and for the world at large. No matter how many times life threw him down or events conspired to break his heart, he still worked for that better life. If people found strength through adversity, then Colossus should be able to out-wrestle the Hulk.

"Workin' in the fields, 'til you get your back burned,  
Workin' 'neath the wheels 'til you get your facts learned,  
Me, I've got my facts learned real good right now.  
You better get it straight darlin'  
Old man wanna be rich, rich man wanna be king,  
And a king ain't satisfied 'til he rules everything,  
I'm gonna go out tonight, I wanna find out what I've got."

She still remembered how she idolized him when she first joined the X-Men, maybe romanticized him too heavily. Even beyond the levels of adolescent crush (_which I freely admit to, _she chuckled to herself, _no self-delusions there_), she imagined him as this pure and perfect knight in literally shining armor. In more recent years, she realized that metaphor was grossly inaccurate. He was no idolized hero, no flawless paragon. He was human, with all the faults, foibles and baggage that implied. Having lost his family over the years, he could hardly be blamed for wanting so desperately to hang onto the slimmest thread of hope that his beloved Snowflake, his sister Illyana, was miraculously returned to him.

_After all, he returned to me, right?_

"Well, I believe in the love that you gave me,  
I believe in the faith that can save me,  
I believe and I hope and I pray that someday it may raise me,  
Above these Badlands, You gotta live it every day,  
Let the broken hearts stand as the price you gotta pay,  
Keep pushing 'til it's understood  
That these badlands start treating us good!"

No, he was no knight in armor, she realized, but something more real, more complex. All the hardships he endured, the mistakes he made, the wrongs that were done to him (_by me as much as anyone_), somehow he was able to constantly work through all that and come out as a better person. Like steel. Tempered steel. She smiled as she considered that metaphor and went back to enjoying the song, as Piotr's strong base-baritone voice hammered the last verse home;

"We're the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside,  
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive,  
I'm gonna find one face that ain't looking through me,  
I'm gonna find one place, I'm gonna spit in the face of these  
BADLANDS! You gotta live it every day,  
Let the broken hearts stand as the price you gotta pay,  
Keep pushing 'til it's understood  
That these badlands start treating us good!  
Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa, Badlands!  
Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa, Badlands!"

The track faded and the sparse audience started to applaud. Kitty stood up and cheered, "Bravo, bravo!" Piotr took a slight bow and descended the stage, meeting Kitty at their table. Stan joined in the applause as well. "Not bad, Pete, not bad at all!"

"Thank you for lying," Piotr shrugged off their praise with a sardonic smile. "I am hardly a trained singer."

"Hey, you sing better than I do," Kitty admitted. "Actually you kinda surprised me there."

"So, Katya," Piotr drawled slightly, "am I the only one of us who will be coerced into public humiliation on stage?" Kitty made a few lame gestures at refusal, causing Stan to positively beam as he started chanting, "Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty—"

"Alright," Kitty feigned surrender. "Gimme." Stan gave her the playlist, which she then took to the DJ. Within a few minutes, it was her turn to take the stage, as she began to sing one of her favorite "Cat's Laughing" songs. Peter and Stan both cheered enthusiastically as Kitty soldiered on through her performance.

* * *

"Katya," Piotr smiled as they left the Flame Pit. "Thank you again for a most pleasant evening."

"Thanks for joining me," Kitty replied. "Y'know, I miss this, just hanging out with friends, having fun like this."

"Really?" Piotr's eyebrow arched slightly at Kitty's comment. "I never thought you'd find it difficult to make friends. Stan was certainly friendly towards you."

"Yeah, Stan's a good friend," Kitty admitted, "but it's a little different with you."

Piotr stole a cautious glance into Kitty's ever-expressive eyes and saw faint melancholy reflective in their hazel depths. "Because we were once lovers?" he asked plainly, recognizing that he was treading into dangerous territory and praying that Kitty would understand.

If this chance reminder of their recent past had shaken her, she certainly hid it well. "Maybe a little of that," Kitty admitted after a moment's thought. "But I think it's more about how long we've known each other. I mean, you've been a major part of my life off and on for nearly the last decade. Yeah, the X-Men are behind me now, but it's still nice to remember the good things, right?"

"Da. There were good days, few and far between though they were."

"Yeah," Kitty shook her head, not wanting to poison her good mood with memories of the 'Bad Old Days'. "I have been keeping up with some of the old guard. Ororo sent me a late birthday gift from Wakanda, Logan and Hank sent me some emails, that sort of thing."

"I spoke with Hank and Logan before I came to Chicago," Piotr admitted. "Logan's last words before I left were, and I am paraphrasing," he rasped his voice to create a fair approximation of Logan's, 'You ever hurt Kitty again, you'll live long enough to regret it, but no longer.'" Piotr kept quiet about other things that Logan had told him about Kitty, about Kosovo and her last battle as an X-Man. He figured that he could approach her when the time was right.

"Sounds like Wolvie," Kitty chuckled ruefully. "Tell me, Peter, you ever get in touch with Scott?"

Piotr's face hardened at the question, his eyes darkened beneath his brow, hooded and unreadable as he turned his face away from Kitty's. "I have no interest in speaking with Scott at this time, or ever again," he intoned levelly, but Kitty nearly flinched at the undertones of rage beneath his voice. As he recognized the shock in her face, he relaxed his facial features, adding, "Forgive me, Katya. I seem to have a sore spot regarding Scott Summers."

"Hey, I'm sorry for dredging it up," Kitty repented. "He's not exactly on my friends list these days either. I guess I was hoping that after all the X-Men had been through, he'd finally have gained some peace."

Piotr shook his head heavily. "Peace was never an option for him," he admitted. After a second's profound silence, his tone lightened considerably. "Enough gloom and doom for one night, I think," he said, offering his arm. "Shall I walk you to your dorm, Miss Pryde?"

"I'd be delighted, Mr. Rasputin," Kitty grinned, linking her arm with his. They strolled toward the UIC campus, chatting happily about everything and nothing.

A sudden scraping of metal against metal, like a switchblade being opened, caught their attention. They turned slightly, only to catch the glint of a nearby streetlamp reflected off the surface of a hunting knife. The would-be mugger wore a torn t-shirt and black running pants, his green eyes gleamed with a desperate madness and his blond hair was stringy and clearly hadn't been washed in days. Druggie, Kitty figured, probably jonesing for a fix.

"Jus' gimme the purse and you don't get hurt!" the knife-wielder rasped in a guttural bark. To his left, his partner in a worn black leather jacket pulled a Beretta out of his jacket pocket and aimed it at Kitty. Both Piotr and Kitty figured he wasn't a seasoned professional; between the less-than-firm grip and the way his elbows were bent, not only would he miss if he fired further than ten feet but the recoil would send the gun slamming into his head.

Kitty and Piotr regarded their would-be assailants with calm contempt. "You're kidding, right?" Kitty chuckled grimly. "Just put those toys down and no one has to get hurt." She stepped forward to confront the two muggers.

Knife-wielder shouted tonelessly, "You asked for it, bitch!" and swung his blade wildly. Kitty stood her ground in phased mode, allowing the blade to pass harmlessly through her. Knife-wielder gaped in pure terror as he tried to slice his intended victim again, only to see the blade pass ghostlike through her.

Gun-toter held his gun sideways (probably something he saw in a movie) and fired randomly at the pair a scant two feet away. Even at that range he couldn't miss. Within a second, Piotr had effortlessly shifted into his organic steel form, allowing the shots that Kitty didn't have to phase through to glance harmlessly off of his body. "We have done nothing to you, tovarisch," Piotr spoke in calm measured tones. "Just walk away and that will be the end of it."

Gun-toter's jaw hung slack as if unhinged. Finally he croaked out, "Muties, Jake, they're stinkin' muties!"

Kitty's stance changed from defending to aggressor at those words. "What...did...you...call...me?" she whispered hoarsely to the two hapless assailants.

"Boshe moi," Piotr swore under his breath and tried to reach for Kitty.

It was too late. Within an eyeblink she had launched herself at her two opponents, ducking low with two effective groin shots before slipping behind them and hitting the backs of their knees hard. Two more quick jabs at their jaws and they collapsed to the ground in painful fetal positions. "Get up and say 'mutie' again, assholes!" she shouted. "C'mon, just give me an excuse!"

"Katya!" Piotr called out to her. She almost attacked him until she saw that he had dropped his armored form and stood before her as flesh-and-blood. With a pronounced shudder, she turned to the two men who groaned and writhed in pain.

"Ohmigod," she breathed. She stood there, unresponsive as Piotr took her hand and slowly led her away from the two fallen muggers. The adrenalin rush that preceded her assault had faded, and she simply stood there, her eyes staring dully at the two men she had attacked.

"It's going to be okay, Katya," Piotr whispered reassuringly. He offered her his shoulder to lean on and she fell into it without resisting. "Change of plans," he murmured. "Let's get you to my hotel suite." He lifted the semi-conscious form of Kitty Pryde in his arms and slowly headed back to his hotel.

Tonight she would sleep soundly while Piotr watched over her from the armchair next to the bed in his hotel room. Tomorrow, he would talk to her.

He needed to know from her, what happened in Kosovo.


	5. Talk To Me

Shadow and Steel  
by Kirayoshi

Chapter three

Talk to Me

"_I can imagine the moment  
Breaking out through the silence,  
All the things that we both might say,  
And the heart it will not be denied  
Till we're both on the same damn side,  
All the barriers blown away._

_I said please talk to me._  
_Won't you please come talk to me?  
__Just like it used to be,  
__Come on, come talk to me.  
__I did not come to steal,  
__This all is so unreal,  
__Can you show me how you feel now,  
__Come on, come talk to me,  
__Come talk to me,  
__Come talk to me,"_

—_Peter Gabriel  
_"_Come Talk to Me"  
_

Lonnie "Tombstone" Lincoln was enjoying his customary breakfast of a three-egg Denver omelet and two links of sausage when his cell-phone rang. The first thing Tombstone did was check the caller ID. No name listed, but he recognized the number; his contact within the CPD. He pressed 'accept' and said, "Make my day."

"We may have a problem, boss," the raspy voice at the other end said quietly but distinctly. "There are two would-be muggers in the holding tank. They got brought in last night on possession charges and are pretty strung out. They're raving something about mutants in Chicago."

"Mutants?" Tombstone mused aloud. "How reliable are these two?"

"Like I said, they were on enough heroin to kill a small horse, but the descriptions they gave were pretty clear. They said that one was a girl who let bullets pass through her body like she was a ghost, and a guy with a body made of metal."

"A ghost and a man of metal," the aspiring crime-lord repeated. "Thanks for the information. How long will you be holding those two?"

"Their arraignment won't be for another hour or so."

"Good. Stay on those two punks. If they say anything more about our mystery pair, you tell me." He disconnected the line and pondered this information.

A man made of metal and a girl who could pass through bullets...

A cursory run through Google provided thousands of different options, but most of them seemed to match up; until recent months, there were two members of the mysterious mutant organization called 'X-Men'; one, Colossus, with a solid steel body possessing phenomenal strength; and one, Shadowcat, who wraithlike could pass through even the most secure doors and walls and allow bullets to pass harmlessly through her. It was possible that those two drugged-out fools in police custody may have made this up, but he didn't get where he was by ignoring potential threats.

"Boss," his associate, the mammoth wearing a grey trench coat grunted, his voice carrying a thick Slavic accent. "You think there's anything to this mutant sighting?"

"Maybe," Tombstone growled to himself. "But I don't like maybes. We're going to find out. I moved from New York to Chicago to avoid both the Kingpin's operation and those meddling superhero-types. Between Spider-Man, the Avengers and the Fantastic Four that city was getting too hot for me. The last thing I need is superheroes moving into my turf in Chicago!" He leaned back in his upholstered chair and steepled his fingers in front of his face. "That information you gave me about Falcone, you're sure that he has lunch every day at the Navy Pier food court?"

"He's been sighted there every day for the last three weeks, since we first came here."

"Good." He took a bite out of his omelet and savored the taste. "I want his lunch today to be his last meal."

"You want me to send someone in to take him out?"

"No, I want you to handle it yourself, in your own inimitable fashion."

The mammoth said nothing for a second, dull eyes regarding his employer from beneath the depths of the tattered fedora he wore. "I don't do subtle, boss," he warned him. "I go after him, people are going to notice."

"That's what I'm counting on," Tombstone replied darkly. "We're going to draw out Metal Man and Ghost Girl. Once they're out, I want you to finish them off."

"Finally," the mammoth laughed hoarsely. "A challenge."

* * *

_Kitty could no longer sense where her body ended and the metal beneath her began._

_She couldn't solidify herself. She didn't dare. Not as long as the ten-mile long coffin she lay in still sped through the cosmos at near-light speeds. Not that it mattered; she doubted that she could solidify at all even if she wanted to. She literally couldn't lift even her finger; her body had all but fused with the alien metal that now surrounded her, that would be her only reality for the rest of her life._

_Explosions rocked the missile from without. Was an alien armada trying to destroy the Bullet? She could almost convince herself that she could see the lights of the fires around her, smell the smoke, hear the screams of the innocents in the behemoth's wake._

_Kitty started to suspect that she was going mad._

_The metal floor around her buckled, shifted, bent into a wave form. Her body lifted upwards, encased in a huge metal hand. She tried to phase out of the hand, but its iron grip proved inescapable. She tried to lift her head, and the metal hand tilted, allowing her to see her new captor. The steel mask of the Sentinel glared dispassionately at her, as its hideous computer voice intoned, "Mutant apprehended. Commence with elimination." Its photo-receptors began to glow as it scanned Kitty's body. _

"_N-no," she whispered feebly as the Sentinel threw her against a wall._

"_Sorry, punkin," the Sentinel replied in an unearthly approximation of Logan's, "but you couldn't take the heat. It's better this way..."_

_The Sentinel tightened its fist, and three long claws popped out with a sickening 'SNIKT'. She screamed as the fist flew toward her, the claws deployed to impale her..._

* * *

"NO!"

Her body felt as if it had fallen rigidly into the mattress. Her eyes snapped open and her breath came in ragged gasps for a second. She was peripherally aware of two strong hands that reached for her, gently taking her forearms, and the deep, gentle voice that called out to her; "Katya, it's okay. You were having a nightmare. It's okay. I am here."

Gathering enough wits around her to recognize that she was no longer in that nightmare-scape, she willed her breathing to calm down to a slow and steady pace. "Piotr," she murmured as she more fully gained consciousness. All she wanted was to sink back into the soft, pillowy mattress and return to oblivion...

It occurred to her that the mattress in her dorm, while reasonably comfortable, was hardly this luxurious.

Now fully awake, she sat up and saw his face, his eyes underlined with dark patches. Clearly he had only slept briefly last night, if at all. She almost envied him. "Peter," she breathed. "Where am I?"

"You are in my suite at the Write Inn," Piotr explained gently. "Do you remember what happened last night?"

"Yeah," Kitty replied. "We were on our way home from the Flame Pit and we were attacked by some muggers, and I..." She stopped short as she recalled the bloodlust she felt when one of the muggers said "muties". "I guess I kinda overdid it, huh?"

"I don't blame you, Katya," Piotr chuckled sardonically. "My guess is that after dispatching those two thugs, the adrenaline rush faded and you ended up falling asleep halfway to the hotel. I didn't feel comfortable rummaging through your purse for the keys to your dorm so I brought you here. A police officer came here to ask about the incident at around 10:30 last night, and I informed him about the muggers. Apparently the muggers were, in the officer's words, 'higher than the Sears Tower'. They want us to make a statement at our earliest convenience today."

"What time is it?" she asked as she glanced around for a clock. A digital alarm clock on the bedside table read 10:15. "Good thing I don't have any Sunday classes," she muttered to herself. She glanced down at her body and for the first time noticed that she was wearing the same clothing she wore to the Flame Pit last night. "I hate it when I fall asleep in my street-clothes," she groaned.

"Under the circumstances, I didn't feel that undressing you would be appropriate," Piotr admitted.

"And where did you sleep last night?"

"Over there," Piotr pointed to an overstuffed easy chair to the right of the bed. "Admittedly not the most comfortable arrangements, but I've slept in much worse in the past. Oh, the police officer indicated that we should report to the precinct sometime today to press formal charges."

"Any objections if I take a shower first?" Kitty asked.

"Not at all," Piotr answered. "Feel free to use mine." He gestured to a nearby door.

"Thanks," Kitty murmured as she entered the private bathroom. "I'll be out in ten," she called out as she closed the door. Piotr could hear the sounds of running water through the wall as he made a quick call on the phone.

When Kitty emerged from the shower, her hair still a little damp but otherwise presentable, Piotr was standing next to a serving cart bearing a large plate of pastries, a pot of coffee and two stoneware cups. "I took the liberty of calling room service for some Danish and coffee. You still take yours cream, two sugars?" he asked as he poured a cup of coffee for her.

"You remembered," Kitty mused, smiling slightly. "Why is that not surprising? And you're still black, three sugars?"

"Da," Piotr affirmed as he handed Kitty her cup. "An old saying of my father's; coffee should be as black as night, as hot as Hell and as sweet as love." He finished pouring his own cup and took a bearclaw off the plate. "Help yourself."

"Don't mind if I do." Kitty reached for a cherry and cream cheese turnover. "Maybe once we've eaten, we should head to the precinct and make that statement."

"Good idea," Piotr nodded, his voice taking on measured tones. "But first, I think we need to talk."

Kitty took a bite out of her turnover, and regarded Piotr cautiously. "I know. I was a little rough on our playmates last night. Blame Logan's training. Krav Maga ain't pretty but it's effective."

"That's not what I meant," Piotr replied. "Katya, while I was recovering at Avengers Mansion, Logan told me that something had happened to you in Kosovo. And judging from your nightmare, you still haven't fully recovered."

Kitty glared darkly at Piotr as she heard his words. "I can move through you, you know. I have powers where I can do that."

"Please," Piotr implored her, "I know that you still carry scars from recent events. I know that you still feel pain, and that I have caused you much of that pain and for that I am deeply sorry. Please let me make amends, Katya. Let me help you. Talk to me."

Kitty could have happily coasted through the rest of her life without having to talk about Kosovo. She saw the concern in Piotr's eyes, and realized that he deserved to know the truth. Heck, maybe actually unloading her burden to someone she trusted, someone she..._loved? Yeah,_ she admitted to herself, _loved. But I think I'll keep that my secret for the time being. My life's complicated enough..._

_Yes, confiding in Piotr would probably do me a world of good._ _Which doesn't negate the fact that there are a number of activities I'd rather do at this time. Like finishing my turnover... _

_Or going fifteen rounds with Sabertooth..._

_Or chugging a 12 ounce bottle of Tabasco sauce..._

Kitty sat down on the bed, her eyes riveted to her lap, unable to look Piotr in the face as she prepared her confession. "Before I tell you about Kosovo," Kitty began haltingly, "there's something else I should get off my chest. I never told you the reason I left you, why I joined Logan's team instead of Scott's."

Piotr regarded Kitty's words quietly before he answered. "I had assumed that you felt as Logan did. That Scott's mutant militia was not viable."

Kitty shook her head slightly, damming the emotional tide that threatened to overwhelm her. "No, well, not entirely," she admitted. "That may have been a small part of it. But there was something else." She pointed her face downward, staring determinedly at her hands as they lay in her lap. "About a week before Juggernaut's attack on San Francisco, you remember? I finally regained control of my phasing powers after that run-in with the Breakworlders, Dr. Rao had given me a clean bill of health, and you insisted on taking me into town to celebrate?"

"I remember a fine dinner in Chinatown, a pleasant walk along Fisherman's Wharf, and then when returned to Utopia Base..." He chuckled throatily at the memory of their activities when they made it to his quarters, how her insistent lips found his and how soft and pliant her body felt...

"Yeah," Kitty replied with a quirky half-grin as she recalled their night of passion. "Again, the word 'whoof' comes to mind. Anyway, a few days after that, I was feeling a bit ill. Nothing serious, just a bit of a dodgy tummy, figured it was a flu bug, that it'd go away in 24 hours. But it didn't." She left the words hanging deliberately, hoping that Piotr might understand the direction of her thoughts.

He did. "Katya?" he asked, his brow furrowing in concern. "Were you pregnant?"

Kitty shook her head again. "No, as it turns out," she admitted. "But I thought I was at the time. Dr. Reyes had explained that my body was in stasis while I was stuck in phase mode all those months on the Breakworld bullet, so I didn't really know what my cycles were then. I figured better to be sure before making any announcements, so the next day I went to a drugstore and picked up a testing kit. Before I could get around to using the thing, Juggernaut started his approach on the city and, well, you know what happened next."

"Da, I do remember." The words fell leaden with regret from his lips. "And you left me because...because you thought you were carrying my—our child?

"Yeah," Kitty admitted, swallowing back the lump that was forming in her throat. "I saw what you had become when you took on the power of the Juggernaut, how you accepted its corruption. I looked at you and saw, not the father of my child, but the vessel of a monster. I was scared, Peter. Scared that the demon that gave you that power could overtake you and hurt our baby. Scared that Scott's mutant army was no place to raise a child. So I left with Logan. I figured that it would be safer, that at least our child would survive." She briefly choked back a sob and continued. "Turned out to be academic; after we set up shop at the new Jean Grey Institute, Dr. Reyes gave me an examination and, well, the test was negative."

Piotr sat beside Kitty, unsure how to respond. He chose to say nothing at this time, to simply allow Kitty to continue telling him of the long journey of her soul since they had last parted.

"The thing is," Kitty wiped back a tear with her sleeve, "I think finding out that I wasn't pregnant hurt me more than seeing you under the Juggernaut's power. It felt like the last thread connecting me to you was cut. That I had really lost you forever. So I cried a lot for a few nights, then I just swallowed my grief and tried to move on. From then on, I was strictly business, all about the mission. I worked with some of the younger kids that came with us, I took on field assignments, and that was pretty much it for the next few months. Any feelings of betrayal I had, any thoughts of what was and what I lost, I buried them. All for the good of the outfit.

"And then came Kosovo. Some regional Serbian general got his hands on some black-market Sentinel robots and had reprogrammed them to attack humans as well as mutants. He sent his Sentinels out to do a little ethnic cleansing and massacre a few villages. Logan led us into the fray. He put me on point against the lead Sentinel. I figured I could take the thing on; I mean, it's just a big honkin' robot, right? Locate its CPU, phase through it, hit the self-repair programs on my way out for good measure and shout 'Timber'." She took a bite out of her strawberry turnover, drank a swig of coffee for courage, and continued. "The second I phased through the Sentinel's outer hull, suddenly the sounds of the battle around me stopped cold. I found myself back in the bullet, inside that same empty space I was trapped in all those months. All I could see was walls of metal closing in on me. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't stop myself from panicking. Next thing I knew I was back in the Blackbird. Logan had Rogue tag me, just long enough to absorb my phasing powers and finish the job. Logan was reading me the riot act as only he can, Rachel and Rogue were on his case for chewing me out, and I just sat there, not able to answer back, to explain what happened." Kitty lifted her knees up to her and wrapped her arms around her legs.

Piotr's eyes remained fixed on Kitty's face as she closed her eyes tightly, willing herself into a state of calm. He nodded his head in understanding as the silence stretched. Finally Kitty continued; "Once we got back to the Institute, I sat alone in my room and thought long and hard about what happened. I realized that the game had changed. That I couldn't just play the good soldier anymore. The X-Men had been like a second family to me for so long that I couldn't see it until then, that we weren't a family, not anymore. I didn't know what we had become, but I could no longer be part of it. The next day, Logan told me I was suffering from PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Like I couldn't have told him that. He told me I should take a few weeks off, get my head back on straight. Of course, I had already decided to quit the team by then, so it wasn't a big deal. I left for Chicago, registered at UIC and never looked back. And I hadn't really thought about any of this until we ran into Beavis and Butthead last night." Shaking her head, she released her hold on her legs and let them lower to the floor. "I guess I'm in worse shape than I thought."

Piotr sat in patient silence, watching as Kitty returned her gaze to her lap, allowing the seconds to follow in their course. Finally he broke the silence; "Katya, I understand what you have been going through, perhaps more than you know." Kitty lifted her chin slightly and opened her mouth to speak, but Piotr continued; "Before you say anything, there is some information I have to share with you." Kitty nodded and allowed him to speak further.

"I told you that I was staying with the Avengers after departing Utopia," Piotr started. "Hank McCoy and Doctor Strange wished to observe me for a week, to insure that there were no lasting effects from my being possessed by Cyttorak. I also took my opportunity to grow my hair back. I figured that you would be less likely to reject me if I wasn't bald."

Kitty glanced up at Piotr, a sardonic smirk tugging at her lips. "Am I that shallow?"

"I wouldn't say 'shallow'," Piotr chuckled, "but you do have a history of reacting strongly toward changes in appearance. I seem to recall your reaction when Ororo arrived for Logan's wedding to Lady Mariko sporting a mohawk."

"Yeah, and I was what, fourteen at the time?" Kitty argued. "And I did get used to it after a while. She might have toughened up on the outside, but she was still the same Ororo I knew and loved under the biker-chick couture. Anyway, my point is that I don't think I would have panicked if you showed up at my dorm with a clean head." Shrugging her shoulders and tilting her head to the side as she looked at Piotr, she added, "I mean, take away the whole demonic corruption angle, and you kinda had this cool Vin Diesel thing going."

At that comment Piotr genuinely smiled at her. "Thank you, Katya, but as much as I respect Charles Xavier, there are some areas in which I have no desire to emulate him, so I think I'll keep my hair as it is now."

"Hey, if it works for you. Now what was this big secret you wanted to tell me?"

"Yes, that," Piotr nodded, his tone serious again. "While I was staying with the Avengers, Hank had spoken to me. It seems that Logan's team had retrieved one of the Kosovo Sentinels after they had defeated it, and Hank had run some detailed scans on the metal giant. He discovered that the outer hull of the Sentinel was composed almost entirely out of Breakworld metal."

The revelation hit Kitty with the force of a hammer blow. She stared wide-eyed at Piotr as the implications of his statement unspooled in her mind. "He did some further research," Piotr continued, "and found out that a weapons firm covertly owned by our old friend Sebastian Shaw had purchased the abandoned Benetech compound."

"That hundred-foot thick slab of metal over the sub-basement," Kitty gasped in realization. "Where I found you, after Ord—" Piotr nodded solemnly. "And when I phased through the Sentinel, the sensation of phasing through that alien metal—"

"Must have reminded you of when you were trapped inside the bullet," Piotr finished her thought. "Hank advised me that you may wish to know his findings, but I didn't understand why, until just now." He extended his hand toward Kitty's face, and her head leaned almost instinctively into the gentle curves of his palm. "As for what you confided in me, Katya," he whispered softly, "now that I understand your reasons, I am glad that you made the choices you did. Your first instinct was to protect our child, even if that child didn't exist. However much it hurt us both, you did what you had to do."

"Yeah," Kitty grunted. "Just like you did when you became the Juggernaut. You decided to stay with Scott's team because you were afraid of hurting others with your newfound strength." Piotr nodded. "I guess we both did what we 'had to do'," she lifted her hands and crooked her forefingers in an 'air-quotes' gesture. Falling backward on the mattress with a muffled thud, she groaned to herself, "I'm sick and tired of always doing what I 'have to do', or 'the right thing', or 'the greater good'! That's why I finally turned my back on the X-Men for good, Peter! I needed to do what was right for me for once! I want to take charge of my own life, not be jerked around by fate! Is that too much to ask?"

Piotr leaned over Kitty's prone form, his blue eyes radiating calm. Suddenly his lips upturned into a smirk. "Don't ask Mongo," he exaggerated his normally faint Russian accent. "Mongo only pawn in game of life."

Kitty's eyes widened instantly at Piotr's comment. She half-snorted, half-coughed as she attempted unsuccessfully to stifle the urge to laugh, but ultimately gave up and started laughing in earnest. Piotr smiled broadly, pleased that he was able to lighten Kitty's mood. Finally, as her giggles subsided, she lifted her back from the mattress, propped herself on her elbows and glared at Piotr, asking, "Since when are you a fan of 'Blazing Saddles'?"

"Last year," Piotr admitted, his smile narrowing slightly but not disappearing, "shortly after the X-Men relocated to San Francisco. Kurt sensed that I was unhappy, still grieving over losing you, so he insisted on a Mel Brooks marathon. He rented the DVDs and we all ended up watching 'Blazing Saddles', followed by 'The Producers', 'Young Frankenstein' and 'Spaceballs'. First time in a very long time that I was able to laugh."

"Leave it to Kurt to find humor in any situation," Kitty replied, her own thoughts drifting toward the melancholy. "God I miss ol' Fuzzy-elf."

"As do I," Piotr agreed. "I guess his death marked a sea-change within the X-Men. Between his sacrifice and Hope's growing influence, it's as though Scott allowed his heart to harden. It may not have been his intention, but the result was the same; Scott allowed the X-Men to become the very threat that they were created to combat."

Piotr looked away from Kitty, as though he feared some unholy judgment from her. "And in the end, he found me more useful as Colossus—as Juggernaut—than I could have been to him as Piotr Rasputin. What was it Nietzsche said, 'he who fights monsters should beware lest he become one'?" He turned back to Kitty, the haunted expression again crossing his eyes. "I could forgive Scott for becoming a monster. I will never forgive him for encouraging me to become one as well. For the damage he wrought on the two of us, on both our souls."

The silence stretched between them for nearly a minute before Kitty reached across the mattress and clasped Piotr's hand in her own. "Then don't let Scott win," she implored him, her voice calm and compassionate, yet fierce with conviction. "We are not damaged goods, Peter. We have our lives ahead of us now." Piotr gently placed his arm around her shoulder, and Kitty leaned unresisting into his embrace, feeling the firm strong arms that always equated safety and shelter to her. "For years we followed Xavier's dream of human-mutant coexistence, while Scott dreamed of mutant survival, and Logan dreamed of integration. Well, I have a dream of my own. It isn't as grand or as all-inclusive as their dreams, but it's still my dream. My dream is to graduate college and have a career and a successful life. And to share that life with someone I love. The old white picket fence and two car garage. That's the only dream I'm interested in fulfilling now. Is that too much to ask?"

"Not at all, Katya," Piotr whispered. "For I too have such a dream. To pursue my bliss, to perhaps become a successful painter." Blue eyes met with hazel, smoldering faintly with long-buried desires. "And to once again win back a place into your heart. For I know now that there is only one person with whom I can consider sharing my life."

He bent his head down slightly to kiss her forehead, just as Kitty lifted her face to his. Quite by accident their lips met in a tender kiss, but neither Kitty nor Piotr felt any desire to back off. Instead, their kisses grew from gentle to passionate, building heat and momentum with each second. Kitty shifted her position until she was sitting comfortably in Piotr's lap, her chest pressed against his, her legs encircling his torso. For the next few fleeting moments, she allowed herself to become lost in the familiar sensation of electric trails along her nervous system as her mouth moved against his and her hands began to slip beneath his shirt...

Suddenly he placed his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her away. "Katya, what are we doing?"

Kitty attempted to ignore his sudden reticence and pushed herself toward him again. "I know it's been awhile, Peter," she murmured, "but I think we'll remember how it works."

"No," he replied regretfully, pushing her away again. "Not like this."

Kitty sat back and gazed at Piotr for a moment. "Uh, weren't you just saying something about wanting to share a life with me? 'Cause I gotta tell you, I'm getting some severe mixed signals here."

"Katya," Piotr replied, his fingers straying lightly against her cheek, "I did say that I want to share my life with you. And I do. I love you, and I always will. But given all that has happened to us over the last year, I believe that it would be best for us to move slowly and not rush into anything. Especially if you were to have any regrets down the line."

Kitty listened to Piotr's words and accepted with great reluctance that he had a point. "I don't suppose that we could have an easy time of it just because we're not with the X-Men now, huh?" Shaking her head, she slowly disengaged herself from Piotr's lap, and brushed her pant-legs with the palms of her hands, to straighten them out. "I'm sorry if I jumped the gun there."

"No problem," Piotr smiled slightly. "So, what now?"

"For today?" Kitty glanced at herself in the dresser mirror across from the bed. "Any objections if we head back to my dorm for a bit before we visit the police? Just so I can get some clean clothes on?"

"An excellent suggestion," Piotr agreed. "And after that?"

"Let's play it by ear for now," Kitty suggested. "See if there's anything happening on campus."

They continued to chat amiably as they walked to the dorm, but a level of reserved caution entered their conversation. Not for the first time, Kitty looked furtively at the handsome young Russian who had been the center of her life for nearly a decade, and asked herself which direction they should take now.

And not for the first time, she didn't have an answer.

* * *

"And that will be $8.89 after tax," the cashier announced cheerily.

The lanky, disheveled gentleman didn't respond verbally; he just handed her a twenty, accepted the change and took his plate to his regular table. A Reuben sandwich with a small root beer and a kosher dill pickle, his usual Sunday lunch. While he was known for taking reckless chances in his business practices, chances that landed him in a position of prominence with the Chicago crime families, he tended to be a creature of habit regarding his meals. He liked his sandwiches a certain way, and was clear and distinct whenever he ordered.

He took two bites out of the sandwich when his day changed.

"Falcone!" a voice like gravel rattling in a metal box called out from the opposite end of the Navy Pier food court. Joey Falcone lifted his head to find out who was calling for him.

He was just barely able to dodge as a table flew toward his head.

Food court patrons flew like geese away from the path of the huge figure that strode slowly toward him. He pushed aside two more tables as he advanced. The behemoth could hardly be mistaken for a typical thug or mob muscleman; he was a hulking mountain of a man, limbs like tree-trunks, chest and torso like an armored car. He wore a gray armored bodysuit that covered his entire massive frame from crown to heel. His headpiece was topped with two enormous horns, like a rhinoceros.

Falcone fought the urge to vomit the bites of Reuben he had just swallowed and merely gawked at the monstrosity that approached him, as inexorably as a lava flow and just as deadly. "Wh-who are you?" he stammered. "What do you want from me?"

"I'm here to send a message," the mammoth replied, his voice thick and almost toneless.

"Wh-what's your m-message?" Falcone asked.

"You're the message," the brute answered. "Your dead body will be the message to anyone who wants to go up against my boss." He now stood directly in front of Falcone's table, and the mobster made several valiant yet futile attempts to swallow the lump of white-hot fear in his throat.

The monster raised his fists and slammed them down on Falcone's table, sending chunks of plywood flying. "And just so you won't die not knowing," he roared, "they call me Rhino!"


	6. Demolition Man

_AN: My depiction of Rhino is largely inspired by the way he was written in "Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours", a Spider-Man novel by Jim "Dresden Files" Butcher. Good book, you should check it out._

Shadow and Steel:  
The Chicago Way

by Kirayoshi

Chapter four  
Demolition Man

_"Tied to the tracks and the train's fast coming,  
Strapped to the wing with the engine running,  
You say that this wasn't in your plan,  
And don't mess around with the demolition man._

_Tied to a chair, and the bomb is ticking,_  
_This situation was not of your picking._  
_You say that this wasn't in your plan,_  
_And don't mess around with the demolition man._

_I'm a walking nightmare, I'm an arsenal of doom,_  
_I kill conversation as I walk into the room,_  
_I'm a three line whip, I'm the sort of thing they ban,_  
_I'm a walking disaster, I'm a demolition man!"_

—_The Police_  
"_Demolition Man"_

As she and Piotr entered her dorm building, Kitty glanced around the lobby. "Oddly silent," she mused aloud.

"It's Sunday, Katya," Piotr reminded her. "Maybe everyone else is relaxing."

"I dunno," Kitty answered. "Normally the campus is still pretty active, even on Sunday. Lemme check the TV lounge. I can usually find Stan here on Sunday mornings." Kitty approached the TV lounge main doors and pushed them open. Indeed, several people were sitting, staring quietly at the 60-inch widescreen, as a news broadcast was showing what looked like a war-zone. Timbers scattered, shelters and buildings crushed, the Ferris wheel in the center unmoving...

Kitty's eyes widened. She knew that Ferris wheel. When she was a child, she and her father would ride that wheel at least once every summer...

She noticed Stan Polaski in one of the lounge chairs, sitting rigidly forward, paying horrified attention to the events on the screen. She leaned toward him and whispered, "Hey, Stan, what's happening here?"

"Some super-strong giant's running around Navy Pier," he answered tersely, his eyes not moving from the set. "Calls himself Rhino. He's trashing the place and holding the Ferris wheel passengers hostage."

Kitty gasped slightly at Stan's words. She turned to Piotr whose horrified face matched hers. "By the White Wolf," he breathed. Kitty said nothing; she just stood there as the news broadcast continued:

"—_This footage has been provided by WGN Sky-cam as we cover breaking developments today at Navy Pier, as police are involved in a stand-off with the metahuman criminal Aleksei Popov, also known as the Rhino. According to eye-witnesses, Popov has bludgeoned a man to death with his bare fists, and is now holding off the police who are attempting to bring him in. Popov's victim has been identified as suspected drug trafficker Joseph Falcone, suggesting that Popov is working as an organized crime enforcer. Police thus far have declined any speculation into Popov's motives. Most of the Pier attractions have been evacuated, but several passengers are currently stranded on the Pier's Ferris wheel, and Popov has refused to allow Pier officials near the wheel to release them. Hostage negotiators have attempted to talk to Popov, but the only demands he will give are that he wishes to see two people he has identified as 'the metal man and the ghost girl'..."_

"So," someone asked, "you think this Rhino guy's a mutant?"

"I dunno," someone else answered. "I thought this sort of crap only happened in New York."

"Yeah," a third voice joined the discussion. "They got enough people there to take care of that, what with the Avengers and the Fantastic Four and all."

"They need all the help they can get," the first voice chimed in. "Remember a few months ago when everyone in New York turned into giant spiders?

Kitty subconsciously tuned out the conversation as the wheels turned in her mind. "Katya?" Piotr glanced at Kitty, only to witness as a nameless terror drained the color from her skin, leaving her pale as milk. She turned away from her and ran swiftly to the door. Piotr followed her and caught up with her in the lobby. "Katya, the reporter said something about this Rhino person demanding to see a 'metal man' and a 'ghost girl'. How could he have known..."

"Our playmates from last night," Kitty groaned, her body standing rigid with her back turned to Piotr. "They probably mentioned us when the cops were questioning them, and word must have gotten out from there."

"So he learned about us from a police officer?" Piotr asked incredulously.

Kitty turned sharply to face him. "Yeah, because we don't have any dirty cops here," she growled, her voice laden with sarcasm. "This is Chicago, Peter. You saw 'The Untouchables', right?" Visibly flinching at the vaguely hurt expression on Piotr's face when she snapped at him, she lowered her voice. "Sorry for harshing at you, Peter, but it's just..." She paused and breathed in deeply. "I thought I was through with that life, dealing with every superhuman whack-job with over-compensation issues."

"Katya," Piotr spoke in the most calming tones he possessed. "You speak as though this monster is your responsibility. Cannot the police handle him?"

"You saw what that bastard's done to Navy Pier," Kitty spat out in frustration. "You think the CPD can handle this thug? He's practically in your weight class. And he asked for us. He couldn't have been clearer if he called for Colossus and Shadowcat by name!"

Piotr stepped toward Kitty and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "And what about you, Katya?" he deliberately spoke in as gentle a voice as he could. "Will you be able to face the Rhino without fear? Without succumbing to the same terror that you felt in Kosovo?"

Kitty glared at Piotr briefly, before lowering her head, almost in defeat to the fates. "I dunno, Peter. But I guess I have to find out. I thought I could escape that life. But I can't let that monster tear up my hometown. I have to deal with him."

"Nyet," he murmured, taking Kitty's lithe form into his arms in a loving embrace. "Not 'you'. 'We'. We will face him. Together."

Kitty dared to lift her head, to look into Piotr's eyes, not knowing if she should expect condescension or bemusement in their blue depths. She was relieved to find only loving concern, laced with a determination as solid as his organic steel form. "Thank you, Piotr," she whispered fervently. Turning toward the lobby's elevator, she added, "C'mon, before we go once more into the breach, we'd better get ready."

Once they made their way to Kitty's dorm, she immediately located her computer, which was in sleep-mode. Lockheed, who was curled up next to the keyboard, craned his head questioningly at Kitty. "Something the matter?" he asked plainly.

"Some superpowered mook's attacking Navy Pier," Kitty answered, tapping the 'Enter' key on her keyboard to bring her computer out of sleep-mode. "Peter and I get to play 'superhero' to stop him."

"If he's operating alone," Piotr observed, "then the two of us should be able to take him down."

"Ahem," Lockheed snorted. "Try 'three of us', big guy. I still haven't decided whether to trust you or not, so I won't be letting you out of my sight."

Piotr shrugged, nonplussed. "Welcome aboard. I'm sure we'll be glad of your assistance." Lockheed harrumphed condescendingly and returned his attention to Kitty.

"Okay, found some information online," Kitty announced. "While I was with the Jean Grey Institute, Hank McCoy left me a back-door password into the Avengers' general data-base. None of the high-end encrypted stuff, but I have the information we need here." She clicked on a small thumbnail pic on the screen, magnifying the image. The huge, bulky figure of the Rhino glared from the screen, huge slabs of musculature bulging from within his thick gray leathern hide, his mouth contorted into a rictus of sheer rage. "The file on Rhino was recently updated by Spider-Man, who's taken him on most frequently. According to his file, AlekseiPopov, born Sytsevich, was a Russian mafia leg-breaker who underwent voluntary chemical and radiation treatment, that transformed him into a super-strong powerhouse. He was also outfitted with body armor that resembled rhinoceros hide, which was permanently bonded to his skin." Glancing back at Piotr, who stood beside her as she scanned the screen, she added, "No wonder he's so angry. I'll bet that thing chafes like Hell."

"Any word on how strong he is?" Piotr asked.

"According to the article," Kitty commented further, "he's been seen lifting steam-shovels and punching holes in armored trucks. He's also supposed to be a lot faster than he looks. Fortunately, according to the files, he doesn't maneuver very well." Smirking sardonically, she added, "Spider-Man also indicates that he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer."

"Not particularly bright, eh?" Piotr raised an editorial eyebrow. "I don't suppose that his chosen profession provides much intellectual stimulation."

"Just be careful around this guy," Kitty warned. "From what I'm reading, he's probably close to your strength level."

"Perhaps more so," Piotr admitted blandly. "My strength is lessened somewhat since ridding myself of the Juggernaut's power. Nevertheless, I feel that we can take the Rhino down."

"Your mouth to God's ear," Kitty muttered. "Could you step out for a moment? I need to get changed."

"Changed?" Piotr questioned, as he dutifully exited Kitty's dorm. Kitty shut the door behind him, just leaving it a crack open. "Is that necessary?"

"If I'm going to play the big damn superhero," Kitty shouted through the door, "I'd better look the part."

"You have a suitable costume, I take it?"

"Something like that," Kitty admitted. "Not the old yellow-and-black school uniform, but it should work."

Piotr nodded his head knowingly. "This wouldn't involve a red mask, gold stretch pants and roller-skates, would it?"

Dead silence greeted his innocent question, until Kitty groused, "You're going to throw that at me for the rest of my life, aren't you?"

Piotr smiled inwardly, seeing the scowl that was surely on Kitty's face in his mind's eye. "That is my current plan, yes."

Kitty chuckled ruefully at his words. "Considering that your last uniform involved wearing an inverted wok with eye-holes over your head, you don't have much room to talk, Big Guy."

"Point taken," Piotr conceded.

"Okay, I'm ready." The door swung open, and Kitty stood revealed in her makeshift field outfit; black leather pants with oval cut-outs on the outside of her upper legs, black leather jacket over a blue muscle shirt revealing a bare midriff, black thigh high boots and cycling gloves, her flowing brown hair tied up in a utilitarian pony tail. "Just a little something I used to wear while working at 'Helles' Belles'," Kitty commented. "If nothing else, my outfit will keep people from looking too hard at my face." Noticing how Piotr was appraising her figure, she added, "Like you're doing now. Yo, I'm up here." She snapped her fingers, gaining Piotr's attention.

Piotr blinked slightly before making eye contact with Kitty. "My apologies," he murmured, somewhat mollified. "And you look just fine."

"Thanks, Peter, and I don't mind really," Kitty assured him. "If anyone's gonna ogle me, I'd rather it be you." She flashed him a wink as she and Lockheed stepped out of the dorm.

"Unfortunately," Piotr admitted as Kitty locked her dorm room door, "I don't have anything in the way of my old X-Men uniform, so I may draw undo attention."

Kitty briefly appraised Piotr's ensemble; blue jeans, gray sweatshirt and sneakers. "You wearing anything under that sweatshirt?"

"Just a black tank top."

"That'll work," Kitty quipped. "Just take the sweatshirt off when we get there and armor up."

"One other concern, Katya," Piotr commented. "How are we going to get there? With the police and emergency vehicles converging on Navy Pier, no doubt the traffic will be impenetrable."

"Gridlock all the way from Lake Shore Drive to Michigan Avenue, yeah," Kitty agreed as they headed for the stairwell next to the elevator. "I may have a solution." As the two mutants and one dragon entered the stairwell, Kitty glanced around surreptitiously to make sure they weren't being observed. Satisfied that they were alone, Kitty took Piotr's hand and nodded to him. Understanding what she was planning, he joined her as she phased through the stairwell banister and the two descended ghostlike rapidly down the stairwell. Lockheed flew down ahead of them, awaiting his human companion at the bottom of the stairs.

Once they reached the bottom of the stairs, Kitty solidified them both, and opened the door to the dorm parking garage. Passing by a few cars kept there by senior students, she gestured toward the back of the garage. "Check it out," Kitty announced as she pointed out the object in question; a red Kawasaki Ninja 650R motorcycle. "Logan had this shipped to me as a late birthday gift once I settled in on campus. I may have to break a few traffic laws, but I'll get us there. In the immortal words of Han Solo, 'She might not look like much but she's got it where it counts'." She grabbed a helmet hanging from the left handlebar. "I'll need to get you a helmet for the next time we ride together, but just armor up for now and we should be fine."

"Will it support my weight in armored form?"

"It should; this bad boy can take half a ton, and you weigh what, five-hundred pounds armored? I'm about one-twenty-five soaking wet, so there shouldn't be any problems. You ready?"

Piotr tensed his muscles slightly and willed the transformation; his body grew more massive as his skin took on that familiar chrome sheen of his organic steel form. "Ready, willing and able," he announced.

"I'll fly overhead," Lockheed announced, "and meet you at Navy Pier."

"I'll see you there, Dragon," Kitty answered as she mounted the cycle. Piotr sat behind her on the saddle, his arms wrapped firmly around her waist. Kitty twisted slightly, just long enough to reach Piotr's cheek for a brief kiss. "For luck," she explained as she put on her helmet.

Kitty gunned the ignition and the motorcycle roared to life and coasted out of the open garage and onto the streets of Chicago. As she steered the vehicle toward Navy Pier, Kitty steeled herself for battle, fighting the swarm of butterflies in her stomach, and praying that their encounter with Rhino wouldn't end up mirroring her last battle in Kosovo.

* * *

Aleksei "Rhino" Popov stalked the grounds around the Navy Pier Ferris wheel like an animal at bay. His ears were deadened to the cries of fear issuing from the wheel's gondolas, his eyes gazing dully toward the waters of Lake Michigan. All he knew was that soon he would face this new opponents, the so-called 'Metal Man' and 'Ghost Girl' that his employer had described to him.

Several police officers crouched behind the makeshift barriers set up by the Crystal Gardens, effectively cutting him off from Lake Shore Drive and the promise of freedom, or even worse, Michigan Avenue, Chicago's famed Magnificent Mile, and the promise of more destruction. Most of Lake Shore Drive around the Pier entrance was cordoned off to prevent any hope of escape, and several ambulances and hook-and-ladder trucks were brought in to assist the gondola passengers. Assuming that Rhino could be brought down without further incident.

"AlekseiPopov," the detective shouted from fifty feet away through his bullhorn, "This is detective Wyzcenko. I'm here to negotiate the safe release of your hostages." The detective waited patiently for Rhino's response.

He didn't wait long; "Are the Metal Man and the Ghost Girl with you?"

Wyzcenko glanced around, his eyes silently questioning the other officers, who merely shrugged their shoulders. "We don't know who these two are, Popov," he answered back. "If you come towards me and away from the wheel, we can discuss it."

"I have nothing to 'discuss' with you," Rhino bellowed sullenly. "I will only speak to Metal Man and Ghost Girl!"

"I'm in charge of the negotiations, Popov," Wyzcenko shouted in his bullhorn, "you speak to me, or you speak to no one!"

"If Metal Man and Ghost Girl are not here in fifteen minutes," Rhino threatened, "I will topple this wheel, killing the passengers! Do not speak to me until they are here!"

Wyzcenko lowered his bullhorn in exasperation and glared at his fellow officers. "Any more bright ideas?"

"We have a sniper over the roof of the Crystal Gardens," one officer advised.

"Tell him to stand down," Wyzcenko growled. "I was on the horn with a Captain Lamont with the NYPD earlier. He's worked with Spider-Man and his rogue's gallery before. According to Lamont, you'd need a bunker-buster to pierce this guy's hide. And as close as he is to the Ferris wheel, anything that would take him down would probably damage the wheel's support structures."

"Detective," someone called out from behind him. "We have a new problem."

Wyzcenko turned on his heel, muttering to himself, "What fresh Hell is this?"

Two cops approached him, each one escorting a figure in handcuffs. "We caught these two breaking through the cordons on a motorcycle. We've impounded the bike, but they insisted on speaking to the detective in charge. They claim to be the 'Metal Man' and 'Ghost Girl' that Popov wants to speak to."

Wyzcenko didn't know which of the two figures surprised him more. The male was easily over seven feet tall and built like a Sherman tank, his body looking as though it was sculpted from stainless steel, the sunlight reflecting off his mirror-surface arms contrasting with his black tank-top, the sunlight reflecting off his mirror-surface arms contrasting with his black tank-top. His companion, however, was a petite-framed woman, early twenties, with shoulder-length brown hair. Wyzcenko was certain he recognized her from somewhere, but couldn't recall where or when—

She blinked in surprise for a moment when she first saw the detective's face. "Daniel?"

Her voice calling his name hit him like a sharp slap across his face, triggering his memory. "Kitty?"

"Shadowcat, please," she corrected him suddenly. It had been years since she used her old codename; even during her last few years as an X-Men she simply went by Kitty Pryde. Somehow the name 'Shadowcat' seemed almost alien even as she spoke it, but the last thing she wanted right now was the whole of Chicago knowing she was a mutant. Better for now to hide behind the anonymity of a secret identity. "And he's Colossus," she added, nodding her head toward Piotr. "We used to be with the X-Men."

"I take it you two know each other," Colossus added conversationally, pursing his lips thoughtfully.

"Never mind that for now," Wyzcenko grumbled, "How do you two know the perp?"

"We do not," Colossus answered plainly, his hands still behind his back. "But last night we ran afoul of two muggers. When they fired their weapons at us, I shifted to my armored form while Shadowcat phased through their bullets."

"Wait, wait," Wyzcenko interrupted, desperately trying to get a handle on the situation. "What do you mean 'phased'?"

"Phasing?" Shadowcat chirped. "Oh, it works a little like this." She extended her right arm, displaying the handcuffs still dangling from her wrist. The free cuff was clearly still locked and undamaged. She phased again, allowing the cuffs to drop through her wrist and clatter to the ground. "After their arrest last night," she continued, "I'm guessing that our playmates must have mentioned us, and the word got out to Big Boy over there," she gestured toward the Ferris wheel, where Rhino was still stalking. "I looked him up online, and from what I read Rhino's probably getting his marching orders from someone higher up. He probably came here to test Colossus and me. As such, the sooner we take him down, the sooner we can end this hostage crisis."

Daniel turned his attention from Shadowcat to Colossus. The metal giant turned his wrists slightly, snapping his cuffs like twigs. Wyzcenko glared hard at him, maintaining a professional stoicism while hiding his amazement; he had seen reports of mutants before, read about them in the newspapers, but this is the first time he ever saw any face to face. "You were just humoring me by keeping those cuffs on, weren't you?" he murmured.

"It seemed like a prudent gesture," Colossus answered, "an expression of trust, if you will. We're all on the same side in this matter. We all want to see Rhino apprehended and the hostages returned safely. Let us help you."

Wyzcenko looked back at Shadowcat—at Kitty. Her face and posture were set in an attitude of calm determination. He remembered that time a few years ago when they first met, when she admitted that she was following him because he so closely resembled a loved one whom she had lost. He glanced back at Colossus, and examined his face. Apart from metallic appearance, he had to admit that there was a resemblance.

"I'm going to make a calculated risk," he announced, "and trust you two. You sure you can handle Rhino?"

"We faced off against the likes of Magneto, Apocalypse and Juggernaut," Shadowcat affirmed in a voice as steely as Colossus' body. "We can take this guy down." As she spoke she glanced upward and noticed a familiar bat-winged shape in the distance over her head.

"Any idea why he chose Navy Pier for his tantrum?" Shadowcat asked the detective.

Wyzcenko grimaced as he regarded the Ferris wheel ahead of them. "Near as I can tell, he was initially there to kill a suspected drug dealer in the food court. Joey Falcone was known for his habits, and one of his habits was to eat lunch at the Navy Pier food court every day. I guess he liked being in a public area, figured that he'd be safer from would-be hitmen than at a secluded restaurant or something. So much for that idea; Rhino knocked Joey's head clean off with one punch."

Colossus turned toward the wheel, his jaw set in grim resolve. "He will find us more formidable adversaries." Without another word, he and Shadowcat turned away from the police barricade and strode toward the wheel.

"You have five more minutes, Wyzcenko!" Rhino bellowed hoarsely as he stomped around the fairgrounds, the massive structure of the Ferris wheel shaking with each heavy footfall.

"Aleksei!" a voice answered back, and the Rhino turned to face the speaker. A well-muscled form loomed like Michelangelo's David before him, sunlight glinting off his metallic form. A smaller figure of a woman stood next to the speaker, her posture tense and prepared, like a wound spring on a hair-trigger catch. "You wanted to speak to us," the metal figure continued, speaking in fluent Russian. "We are here. The hostages will now go free."

"So, the Metal Man and the Ghost Girl have finally shown themselves," Rhino grunted, also in Russian, although his guttural voice caused the words to rasp harshly against his listeners' ears. "No, I do not believe I will free the hostages for you now."

"I was not offering a choice, Rhino," Colossus answered assuredly as he stepped forward. "I was merely stating a fact. Either you will release the hostages willingly, or we will free them after dealing with you. It's your decision."

"No," Rhino muttered, lowering his head. "I think instead that I shall kill the two of you, and then topple the wheel. Do you think you can stop me?"

On their way to Navy Pier, Kitty and Piotr had discussed strategy; they had agreed that Piotr should speak to Rhino first, and in Russian. As a fellow countryman, even if he was native to a different region of the country, they felt that vocal negotiations would be the best possible opening gambit. Should Rhino refuse— and both Kitty and Piotr suspected that his refusal would be the most likely response— they could at least coax him further away from the Ferris wheel, so they could take him down with relative safety. They also figured that Rhino would be expecting Colossus to attack first. So should it come to battle, they would surprise him.

Colossus turned to Shadowcat, their eyes locking for a moment, and they both spoke one word in unison:

"Fastball."

Without a second's hesitation, Shadowcat let her body fall limp as Colossus cradled her back in his right hand. As he pulled his arm back, she braced herself, curling into a ball and facing forward. His arm swung forward, throwing Shadowcat toward Rhino at lightning speed. Rhino rushed forward to meet the human projectile, swinging his arms wildly to knock her back down to the ground. As she neared her target, she phased, allowing herself to pass harmlessly through the Rhino and land gracefully behind the lumbering beast. Rhino slowed his forward momentum, turning his huge head to locate the seemingly easy target that suddenly disappeared from his line of sight. Before he could catch sight of his attacker, his vision exploded in white-hot bursts of heat and flame, as Lockheed fluttered in front of him, breathing a stream of fire into his face. Not enough to do permanent damage, but enough to cause pain and force Rhino to close his eyes.

"Say hello to my little friend!" Shadowcat called out. So far, the plan was working; first Shadowcat would draw him out by offering an obvious target that he couldn't truly hit, luring him far enough from the Ferris wheel, and then Lockheed would disorient him with a blinding flash of his flaming breath. Now to put the monster down. "Colossus, he's clear!" she shouted. "Grab him!"

Rhino staggered blindly for a moment, before the freight train landed on the small of his back. Colossus grabbed Rhino's arms behind his back and held him in a firm hammerlock. Rhino pulled back in an effort to free his arms, and Colossus was forced to admit that his opponent's strength was indeed formidable. But Colossus maintained his hold, clasping Rhino's arms in a steel vise grip. "Yield, Rhino!" Colossus demanded. "I won't let you harm anyone else today!"

Rhino said nothing, just reared himself, attempting to push Colossus back, to buy some leverage to break his grip. With a bellow of stubborn defiance, he lunged forward with enough strength and speed to flip Colossus over his shoulder and onto the pavement. Stunned only momentarily, Colossus quickly regrouped and scrambled to his feet, facing the behemoth again. "You are strong," Rhino admitted, wiping the dust of battle from his face with his huge paw. "But not strong enough."

Colossus braced himself as he stood before Rhino, legs spread, arms raised, ready for whatever Rhino could dish out. "That remains to be seen, Aleksei."

Rhino grunted again and threw himself backward with enough force to knock Colossus off of his feet. Wrestling himself free of Colossus' steel arms, he clambered gracelessly to his feet, only to receive a steel fist hitting the side of his head with the force of a piledriver. "Stand down, Rhino," Colossus ordered as he sent more mailed punches to Rhino's head and chest. "It's over!"

"Indeed it is, metal man!" Rhino snarled as he charged forward, his horned head lowered. Colossus grabbed him by his head and managed to slow his charge briefly, before Rhino changed his tactics on him. He clubbed Colossus' head with his huge arms, knocking him back far enough for Rhino's next blow to send Colossus flying across the Pier's midway, landing hard against the Ferris wheel's support pylons.

Kitty shuddered as she witnessed this battle. Even as Colossus righted himself from Rhino's savage attack and charged forward to confront the beast anew, she feared the worst. She had to end this now. She stepped lightly around the battleground, staying directly behind Rhino. She caught Colossus' eye and nodded once to him, her hand outstretched, her fingers splayed. She hoped that she was able to communicate her intentions with that simple gesture. Colossus nodded back, a knowing smirk on his face, and stopped advancing toward Rhino.

"Are you tired already?" Rhino bellowed tauntingly. "Then let us end this!"

"My thoughts exactly," Colossus replied coolly. Rhino grunted defiantly, took two thudding steps closer to his quarry—and stopped suddenly. He stood almost frozen for a half-second, before his body fell unconscious to the ground like a felled tree. Shadowcat stood behind him, her hand outstretched, a wicked grin crossing her face. "And down goes Foreman!" she exulted, leaping in the air.

Wyzcenko, who had been watching the battle from the police barricades, dared to venture forth and approached her. "What happened? Is he down?"

"Ran my hand through his cerebral cortex," Kitty explained, "phasing through his synapses enough to short his brain out. He'll be out for a few hours, but he'll have the granddaddy of all headaches when he comes too."

Wyzcenko signaled to his men. "Let's haul this guy out of here and put him in custody!" As a squad of police officers converged around Rhino, everyone present heard a groaning sound, like shifting girders grinding against each other.

Kitty glanced up toward the wheel and shuddered. "Oh no," she cried out, pointing at the wheel as it swayed slowly against it axis. "That can't be good."

"Rhino's last blow," Colossus gasped as he approached Shadowcat. "The one that threw me against the support structure." They glanced toward the support structure and saw the huge dent where Colossus impacted with the girders.

And the wheel continued to sway, threatening to topple within minutes and take its terrified passengers to their graves...

* * *

To Be Continued _(Dun dun DUH!)_


	7. Don't Carry It All

_All disclaimers still apply. And yes, in the final scene, Piotr quotes Babylon 5 and Kitty quotes Dune._

Shadow and Steel

The Chicago Way

By Kirayoshi

Chapter six

Don't Carry It All

"_Here we come to a turning of the season,  
Witness to the arc towards the sun,  
The neighbors blessed burden, within reason  
Becomes a burden borne of all in one,  
But nobody, nobody knows._

Let the yoke fall from our shoulders,  
Don't carry it all, don't carry it all.  
We are all our hands in holders  
Beneath this bold and brilliant sun  
And this I swear to all."

—_The Decemberists  
_"_Don't Carry it All"_

* * *

"We need a hook-and-ladder truck and some cherry-pickers at Navy Pier! NOW!" Wyzcenko barked into his cellular. Other officers hauled off the unconscious body of the Rhino, as still others started shooing off onlookers away from the Ferris wheel as it swayed slowly. Near the food court building, a first response team had set up makeshift tents and prepared gurneys and medical devices to tend to causalities once rescue operations could begin. Shadowcat and Colossus stared upward at the wheel as it listed toward them, its steel framework groaning in protest. An iron knot of dread fell sickeningly down Kitty's stomach.

After a moment's thought, Colossus turned to Wyzcenko. "If we can shore up that support pylon where Rhino threw me, would that stop the wheel from falling?"

"Maybe not stop it," Wyzcenko answered rapidly, "but it could buy us a few minutes for rescue vehicles to arrive!"

"That's all I need to know!" Without another word, Colossus and Shadowcat rushed toward the damaged pylon and examined it briefly.

The Navy Pier Ferris wheel is supported by eight separate support pylons, four on each side of the wheel, arranged in groups of two, meeting directly at the hub of the wheel, forming four inverted 'V' shapes. With his last blow, the Rhino had managed to propel Piotr's armored form with enough force to severely damage the outer southwest pylon, but by a stroke of good fortune his body had landed low on the pylon, near the ground. The damaged spot stopped roughly six feet off the ground, well within reach. Wasting no time, Colossus steadied himself under the damaged pylon, placed his steel shoulders under the metal support structure and began to lift, his hands grabbing firmly into the metal right above his head. The wheel's metal superstructure slowed its tilting, ultimately halting.

Kitty winced sympathetically as she regarded the twisting of Piotr's facial features as his muscles strained like bridge cables under the weight of the wheel. His position under the pylon somewhat reminded her of the statue of Atlas in front of New York's Rockefeller Center. "How long can you hold up the wheel, Piotr?"

"For as long—Ungh—as it needs to be held," Piotr grunted through clenched teeth, his voice halting but determined.

Kitty looked back toward the wheel. It was holding still for now, but for how long was anyone's guess. "Lemme see if I can shorten that time," Kitty replied. Before turning away, she mouthed the words, "I love you, Piotr." She turned toward the police officers, as Lockheed hovered overhead, following his human companion.

"Wyzcenko!" Shadowcat cried out as she approached the detective. "How long before the emergency vehicles arrive?"

"Traffic's being cleared around North Lake Shore Drive and East Grand Avenue," Wyzcenko answered. "But even with that, it'll take at least ten minutes for a hook-and-ladder. The Pier has some cherry-pickers available; they're pulling them out of storage to help shore up the wheel. But we need to start evacuating the passengers from the wheel as soon as possible."

"How many passengers are trapped there?"

"According to the wheel operators, twenty-nine passengers were on the wheel when Rhino started his rampage. But there's nothing we can do until the hook-and-ladder or the cherry-pickers arrive!"

Lockheed lit gently on Shadowcat's shoulder, harrumphing as he folded his wings. "He doesn't know you very well, does he, Kitty?"

Wyzcenko stared in wide-eyed shock at the bat-winged creature on Kitty's shoulder. "Your, uh, dragon?"

"Yeah?"

"He—he talks."

"Yeah."

Wyzcenko nodded. "Just making an observation." Given that within the last thirty minutes he had seen a man of metal wrestle with a behemoth and a woman pass effortlessly through handcuffs, he figured this wouldn't be the time to start getting skeptical.

"I'm going to head up there," Kitty declared, "and start bringing down the passengers."

"Without a ladder?" Wyzcenko asked suddenly.

"No need," she answered. "My mutant power lets me walk on air, and I can bring two or three down with me each trip." She stared intently at the police detective, her wide eyes imploring him silently. "Trust me, Daniel," she assured her friend. "I can do this."

Daniel Wyzcenko nodded once. "Go, Kitty. Godspeed."

Kitty flashed a slight smile at the officer, before turning around and beginning her climb. As she began to elevate herself, she resembled from Wyzcenko's perspective a woman running up a long flight of stairs. "Dragon," she called out to Lockheed, "I need you to reconnoiter."

"What can I do, Kitty?" he asked dutifully.

"I'm going to start toward the top of the wheel," she announced. "I need you to fly around the wheel and see which gondola cars have passengers in them. Each time I head back up, I want you to hover around an occupied car, so I'll know who to rescue next."

"I'm on it," Lockheed nodded, flying ahead of his mistress. As he approached the top-most gondola car, he examined it briefly, before flying on to the next one, in a clockwise pattern. He stopped suddenly and hovered over the car, his wings flapping furiously. Kitty puffed a sigh of relief as she headed up to the gondola Lockheed was flying over. "The top car's empty," Lockheed announced tersely as Kitty approached him, "but there's a mother and two children in this one."

"Good job, Lock," Kitty replied. She examined the red boxlike gondola car briefly before entering. Phasing herself through the protective rails. "Hey guys," she announced. "Is everyone okay here? Any injuries or nasty scrapes?"

The mother looked to be in her mid-thirties, a somewhat heavyset but still attractive African-American woman. Her two children, around five and seven, huddled around their mother's legs, scared by their ordeal. The mother glared hard at Kitty's masked face and black leather top and pants. "How'd you get up here?" she demanded. "Who are you?"

"My name's Shadowcat," Kitty announced. "I'm here to rescue you."

"Are you a superhero?" the older child asked. "Cool!"

The mother placed her hand on the child's shoulder to quiet him. "How can you get us down from here? I don't see any ladders around."

Kitty smirked at the woman's observation. "Like the kid said, I'm a superhero. I'll get you down. What I need you to do is hold my hand," she offered her left hand to the mother and turned to the seven-year-old, "And you, what's your name?"

"Kevin."

"Okay, Kevin, I want you to hold my other hand, and can you hold your little sister," she indicated the five-year-old, "with your other hand?" Kevin silently did as instructed, and the sister took her mother's free hand in hers, as the four people formed a ring. "Okay guys, this could get a little weird so you might want to close your eyes." The mother and Kevin opted to close their eyes, but the little girl shook her head, her eyes wide open. Kitty gave what she hoped would be a reassuring smile to the child. "Okay, we're going down now. No matter what happens, don't let go of each other's hands until I say so, okay?"

Concentrating, Kitty altered the molecular cohesion of herself and the three bodies in contact with her, so they slipped gently through the gondola floor, and descended at a moderate speed to the ground. She maintained her phasing power against the air around them to slow their descent, so from the perspective of the other three it felt like they were going down in an elevator car.

The younger daughter glanced around her, eyes wide with wonder as she looked at her feet. "Wow," she whispered. "We're floating!" As she said the words, Kevin dared to open his eyes and look around him.

"Something like that, kid," Kitty assured her. "Just hang on."

"My name's Sally," the girl announced happily. "What's your name?"

"Like I said, Shadowcat."

"She's not gonna tell you her real name, dummy," Kevin snapped at his sister. "It's a secret, like in 'The Incredibles'."

"Don't be calling your sister names, Kevin," the mother intoned, silencing Kevin.

Within a few seconds, Kitty brought the family safely to the ground beneath the wheel. "Okay guys, main floor, everybody off," she chimed as their feet lighted on the ground. Wyzcenko!" she called out, and the detective approached her. "Officer Wyzcenko will show you guys where to go from here."

"Thank you," the relieved mother nodded as she let go of Kitty's hand. Kevin and Sally also nodded their thanks to Shadowcat before Wyzcenko took them aside. As the police detective escorted the passengers to the makeshift first aid station, Kitty promptly rushed toward the wheel, ascending with each step as she sighted Lockheed darting back and forth over the next gondola car.

Colossus, for his part, remained stone-still as he supported the vast weight of the Ferris wheel with his steel frame. He could hear the metal struts of the pylon directly above him groan in protest, as weak spots in the metal began to crumple. Out of the corner of his eye he could see cherry-pickers and elevated platforms being deployed on either side of the wheel to provide support. He also saw Kitty elevating herself to the next gondola to rescue more passengers. _She is counting on me,_ the thought ran through his mind like a mantra. _I will not let her down._ With renewed determination, he braced himself under the pylon, holding its weight on his shoulders.

As she alighted inside the carriage, she approached the two passengers; Caucasian, early-twenties by appearance, one male, the other female, presumably dating. "Hey guys, the name's Shadowcat, I'm here to rescue you," she announced. "Either of you two suffering from any broken bones or—"

"How the hell did you get up here?" the man, a lean, dark-haired figure blurted out.

"I phased," Kitty answered quickly. "It's a long complicated process, I'll explain it on the way down."

She reached for his arm but he swatted it aside. "Keep your hands off me, you stinkin' mutant!"

Kitty rolled her eyes, quietly drawing on meditational techniques Logan had taught her years ago to stifle the urge to throttle him. "Look, buddy," she announced, barely containing the edge in her voice, "right now my partner's down there holding up this wheel on his shoulders. He's pretty strong, but I don't know how long he can hold this wheel up. So the way I see it you can either stay here and die, or come with me and not die." After a brief pause, she added, "Y'know what, staying here and dying isn't even on the table; I'm not letting anyone die today, not even you!" She reached for his arm again.

"Back off, freak!" he snarled as he lurched away from her.

"I don't believe this!" his companion shouted in frustration. "God, Steve, if I knew you were such a jerk, I'd have never gone out with you! Right now I wouldn't care if she had three eyes and a horn growing out of her head, she's trying to save us!"

"Uh, thank you," Kitty muttered, "I think."

"Stay out of this, Josie!" Steve grunted back at her. "I ain't lettin' this mutant bitch touch me!"

"OH, SHUT UP!" Josie pulled her fist back and connected with Steve's jaw, sending him reeling. His head impacted with the railing and his body slumped back into the gondola seat with a graceless thud. Kitty rushed to his side and pressed her fingers against his neck for a second. "Pulse is still strong," she nodded. Turning to Josie, she added, "Y'know what? Thank you! It'll be easier to haul this punk down like this instead of having him thrashing about in panic."

"I just can't believe I fell for his line," Josie groused. "That's what I get for going out with a guy 'cause he looks like Edward Cullen!"

"Yeah, I'm more a 'Hunger Games' fan myself," Kitty quipped as she dragged Steve's arm over her shoulder. "At least Katniss can kick some butt, unlike Bella. Can you grab his other arm?"

"Here," Josie offered, lifting Steve's free arm over her shoulder. "So how do we get down?"

"Just hold on," Kitty announced, concentrating. Wordlessly, she phased herself and the two passengers through the gondola floor. Josie looked around in awe as she found herself hovering over the Navy Pier midway, through the wheel's superstructure. Steve, still unconscious, hung limply between them. Kitty smugly suspected that she was seeing the young man at his most appealing at this moment.

As the descent continued, the wheel lurched violently around them. Kitty's heart thudded in dread, fearing that the support struts had buckled or that Piotr's grip had given way. Glancing nervously around, she noticed a large cherry-picker to the left of the wheel, a large iron hoist hook snagged firmly around one of the wheel's struts. "ATTENTION, SHADOWCAT AND COLOSSUS!" An amplified voice boomed out from a megaphone below her. "THIS IS DETECTIVE WYZCENKO! CHERRY PICKERS HAVE BEEN DEPLOYED TO STABILIZE THE WHEEL, AND TWO HOOK-AND-LADDER TRUCKS ARE ON SITE TO HELP WITH EVACUATION! REPEAT, CHERRY PICKERS AND HOOK-AND-LADDER TRUCKS ARE ON SITE TO ASSIST, OVER!"

"Thank you, Daniel!" Kitty whispered to herself. "Okay, let's get you two down safely."

"Colossus," Josie muttered quietly. "Is he your partner? The one holding the wheel?"

"Yeah," Kitty nodded slightly. "You'll see him when we land. Y'cant miss him; seven foot five, solid steel, built like The Rock."

"Does he have a brother?" Josie grinned cat-like. Kitty chuckled slightly at her innuendo.

As they landed safely beside the wheel, Daniel and Piotr both rushed to meet them. "What happened to him?" Daniel asked, indicating the unconscious Steve.

"Uh," Kitty hesitated slightly, "he hit his head."

"_I_ hit his head," Josie corrected her, a smug grin on her face. "He was panicking, I had to do something!"

"You okay, Big Guy?" Kitty turned her attention to Colossus, noticing he was no longer standing beneath the support structure.

"Once the cranes began to pull the wheel up," Piotr explained, lifting Steve in his arms, "I felt the weight lift off my shoulders. The cranes appear to be holding the wheel stable, so I offered to help the first-responders. I'd better take this one to the first aid tent."

"When he comes to," Josie barked toward Colossus, "tell him to lose my phone number!"

Kitty glanced at the young woman for a moment before announcing, "I like her! Okay, guys, you take them to first aid, I'll go help the hook-and-ladder teams!" Daniel and Piotr helped the latest rescuees to the first aid tent, while Kitty headed back toward the wheel.

Roughly half-an-hour later, the last passengers on the Ferris wheel were transported safely to the ground, either by ladder or by phasing. Kitty's last rescues, a middle-aged Hispanic couple, were being escorted to the first-aid tent as they stepped gently to the ground. Before leaving, the older woman embraced Kitty in gratitude. "Thank you, child," she declared in an awed gratitude. "You're an angel!"

"Not really," Kitty shook her head. "Just on the side of them. But you're definitely welcome." The older woman gave Kitty a teary-eyed smile before rejoining her husband at the first-aid tent. Kitty glanced back at Lockheed, who now lighted on her shoulder. "That's the last of them," the dragon announced in a trilling purr.

"Thank God," Kitty sighed with relief as she and Piotr approached Detective Wyzcenko. "Daniel," she called to the detective. "How are the passengers doing?"

"As well as can be expected," Wyzcenko answered. "The medics reported one concussion and three broken limbs. Bruises and scrapes for most everyone else, but nothing too serious." Pausing for a moment as he regarded the two mutants, he added, "If you two hadn't shown up, it would have been a great deal worse." Extending a hand, he concluded, "Thank you."

Kitty accepted the offered handshake, and then Piotr took his hand as well. "We're glad that we could help," Piotr declared.

"Yeah," Kitty added in agreement. "Just let me have my bike back and we'll call it square."

Wyzcenko gestured to a nearby sergeant. "You heard the lady, go get her bike!" The sergeant saluted and rushed off to locate Kitty's motorcycle.

A murmuring rumble could be heard from the onlookers behind the police barricades. A teen-aged girl in goth clothing began clapping her hands, then several people around her, then like a great wave spreading over the shoreline the onlookers applauded enthusiastically. Some people began chanting the names "Colossus! Shadowcat! Colossus! Shadowcat!" while others whistled and whooped and pumped their fists in the air, and still others held up cell-phone cameras to snap photos of the two heroes. Kitty could feel herself blushing, and noticed a bemused, slightly embarrassed expression on Piotr's steel face. Still the crowd continued their congratulatory cheering, as video cameras from the local news programs began hovering like hummingbirds around Kitty and Piotr, as well as the cheering throng surrounding them.

This footage would be the lead story on all the news broadcasts that evening and the main headline of every Chicago-area newspaper, as they heralded the arrival of Chicago's new heroes.

* * *

This was not how it was supposed to go down.

Tombstone snarled, baring his razor-honed teeth as he read the headline on the Chicago Sun-Times homepage: 'MUTANT HEROES END NAVY PIER HOSTAGE CRISIS'. The article went on to mention that Alexei "Rhino" Popov was now in a maximum security holding facility awaiting a bail hearing.

Stifling his rage and shutting off his computer screen, Tombstone leaned back in his office chair, steepling his fingers in front of his chin in thought. He knew that he could rely on Rhino's silence, and after a few days cooling his heels in jail, he would be more than happy to return to Tombstone's good graces.

_After all,_ the crime boss mused darkly, _he didn't fail me, not really. Sure, he lost his first round with Colossus and Shadowcat, but at least he brought them out into the open. Now I know who I'm dealing with. Know yourself and know your enemy, like Sun Tsu wrote._

He turned his thoughts away from these upstart heroes and concentrated on more important things. He had a business to run, an empire to establish. He would bide his time regarding this new threat, stay off their radar for the time being, determine if they were worth dealing with.

_And if they ever do become a problem,_ he concluded as he picked up a black leather-bound address book, a shark's smile playing at his lips, _I'll be the one carving their tombstone._

* * *

"—_After defeating the Rhino, Colossus and Shadowcat assisted police and first responders with rescue operations. Thanks to their joint efforts, all the hostages were rescued from the Ferris wheel safely and without severe injuries. Navy Pier officials announced later today that repairs for the Chicago landmark are already underway and they expect the Ferris wheel to be fully operational within three months. In other news…" _

Kitty and Piotr sat at the same table at the Flame Pit that they shared with Stan Polaski the previous night. The widescreen flat-panel television over the bar was tuned to evening news, recounting the events of their earlier encounter with Rhino. The campus hang-out was fairly busy that evening, and from the snatches of conversations that they heard from various tables, the main topic of conversation was the Colossus wrestling the Rhino while Shadowcat helped rescue passengers on the Ferris wheel.

"I think we're a hit," Kitty whispered casually to Piotr as she nursed her Italian soda. She glanced at the widescreen and noticed images of Colossus lifting the support pylon on his steel shoulders. Several of the bar patrons had begun cheering enthusiastically at the footage. "Just like the good ol' days, huh?"

Piotr chuckled as he shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted, sipping his iced tea. "I honestly cannot remember the last time that I was in a fight like that. There was no moral ambiguity, no hopeless battle against overwhelming odds, we were the 'good guys' as Logan would say, and Rhino was the bad guy." He took a sip from his coffee and added, a sly smirk playing at his lips, "And he made such a satisfying thud when he hit the ground."

Kitty began laughing as she remembered the sight of Rhino dropping like a sack of potatoes. "Yeah, that definitely had entertainment value."

"And you, Katya," Piotr's tone shifted slightly toward gentle concern. "Are you well?" Kitty turned her attention to her drink, prompting Piotr to add, "I only ask because of what you told me today about Kosovo…"

"It's okay, Big Guy," Kitty lifted her head and gave Piotr a reassuring smile. "I'm okay. I guess once I got my head into 'mission mode' and concentrated on helping you take down Rhino, I just forgot to be scared. And then when I started rescuing the others…" Taking Piotr's hand in hers, she added, "I thought about you, holding up the wheel, and it clicked into place. You weren't gonna give up, so I couldn't give up either."

"I knew you were counting on me," Piotr nodded soberly. "After I rid myself of the Gem of Cyttorak, I promised myself that if I had the opportunity, I would never let you down again."

Kitty felt her pulse elevating at his words, felt her cheeks flush with familiar and welcome warmth. "Yeah," she concurred. "We make a good team."

"We always have," Piotr answered, staring intently at her features. Blue eyes locked onto hazel for the briefest of moments before he turned his head away. "I am so sorry for everything, Katya"

"Don't go there, Peter," Kitty gently scolded him. She knew that doleful look that crossed his eyes, that sense of fatalism in his voice. _Must be a Russian thing_, she pondered briefly. "We've both made more than our share of mistakes. All couples do."

Piotr gave a sardonic grunt. "How can you be so forgiving, after all the pain I've put you through over the years. I allowed myself to be possessed by a demon..."

"Names Ogun and Lilith ring a bell?" Kitty challenged him. "Been there, done that."

Piotr looked back at her, smirking slightly. So she wants to play, huh? "I fell for an alien healer," he volleyed.

"I fell for a James Bond wannabe," she returned.

"I betrayed the X-Men and stood up to be counted with Magneto."

"And then I went and betrayed you back to get you to stay. Not either of our finest hours, Pete."

"I took the Legacy cure, knowing it would kill me."

"I phased a million tons of metal through the Earth, knowing it was a one-way trip." Raising her hand before Piotr could list another crime for which he had unfairly convicted himself, she added, "And after all of that, all the fights, all the grief and rage and loss and joy and tears and laughs and all that, we're getting something that very few people in this world get; a second chance."

She inhaled deeply, fixing her eyes to his again. "While we were on our way to the dorm this morning, before we heard about Navy Pier, I kept thinking of a line from one of my favorite classic science-fiction books, 'Dune'. Early in the book, Princess Iluran said, 'A beginning is a very delicate time.' We're getting this new beginning between us, and I forgot how delicate that is. When I was putting the moves on you this morning, I guess I was jumping the gun. I was acting like we were picking up where we left off, and that was my mistake. You were right, Piotr. As much as I love you, I don't want to mess this up. Whatever happens, we won't rush it. We'll just let it happen. Okay?"

Piotr regarded Kitty for a second, before flashing an approving smile. "Deal," he agreed, offering her his hand to shake.

Kitty smirked slightly as she glanced as his hand. Instead she placed her hands gently but firmly on either side of his head, pulled him toward her and kissed him soundly on the lips. The kiss was not urgent, or a heated prelude to passion, but neither was it chaste or merely a friendly exchange. Through her kiss, Kitty communicated to anyone who happened to look in their direction; _This man is mine, I am his and you are our witnesses to this truth._ After a few seconds, she withdrew her face slightly, but her forehead was still touching his. "I said 'slow'," Kitty whispered with a faint purr in her voice, "not 'dead stop'."

Piotr chuckled at Kitty's assertiveness. One of the first traits he noticed about her, and one of the first things that made him fall in love with this amazing woman in the first place. "I have no problem with that," he chuckled throatily. The two giggled like children at play, not caring who was watching their behavior.

A sudden chiming of a utensil against a glass from a nearby table attracted their attention. A party of six sat in rapt attention as one woman stood up. Kitty glanced at the table, and was surprised to recognize Josie, one of the people she helped rescue, the one dating the jerk. Josie's back was toward Kitty's table, so Kitty was fairly confident that she did not recognize her. "Listen up, people," Josie announced as she raised her beer pint-glass. "Before we start the next round, I just want to propose a quick toast to the people who saved my life today, and the lives of everyone on that wheel. To Chicago's new heroes, Shadowcat and Colossus!" The others at Josie's table touched glass to glass, echoing her toast.

Piotr and Kitty glanced back at each other briefly. Piotr shrugged his shoulders, held up his tea glass, and quietly echoed, "To Shadowcat and Colossus. And to beginnings."

"To beginnings," Kitty agreed as she touched her glass to his.

* * *

_A/N: No, not the end. Not for these two. Just the beginning. I have plans for Chicago's new heroes. If I may be allowed to tease you a little for the next two stories in my "Shadow and Steel" arc:_

**_Chiaroscuro_**_; Chiaroscuro refers to the__ arrangement or treatment of light and dark parts in a painting or woodcut. A balance or contrast between dark and light. Something Piotr Rasputin will have to deal with again in his own life. Meanwhile, Tombstone makes his move and hires a familiar enemy to play a sinister game with Colossus and Shadowcat._

_**Renewed Shall Be Blade That Was Broken**__; When the Lady Roma appears before Piotr and Kitty, warning of a demonic invasion, that can only mean one thing. Kurt, Rachel, Brian, Meggan, Pete W., we're getting the band back together! Plus how Kurt came back (this is the real Kurt, not that jerk from the AOA) and the final fate of Magik._

_Can't say for certain when I'll get these done, as I also want to revisit my long-dormant Spider-Man story "One Last Chance", but I do have plans for our favorite star-crossed mutants. _

_And as always, feedback is a wonderful thing!_


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